VIRGINIA JUSTICE SYSTEM FUND FAMILY COURTS

The Virginia family-court system sorely needs fixing.

Currently, family matters are divided between Juvenile and Domestic Relations Courts, which handle delinquency and some custody and support matters, and Circuit Courts, which are responsible for divorces, adoptions and annulments.

The system is such that a dissolving family may find itself fighting in two different courts at the same time, over related matters. And if a decision is appealed from Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court, the case goes to Circuit Court to be tried anew: an expensive and useless repetition. Furthermore, the two different courts follow different rules and procedures.

If a state sought a family-courts system as expensive, time-consuming and confusing as possible, it might use Virginia's for a model.

The present system was supposed to be fixed by the 1993 Family Court Act, which provided for new Family Courts to handle family matters. Civil cases appealed from Family Courts would go to the state Court of Appeals, where the lower-court record would be reviewed but the case would not be retried.

The Juvenile and Domestic Relations Courts would convert to Family Courts, and about 18 percent of the Circuit Court workload would go to Family Courts. Thirty-two new judges would be appointed. Costs were to be met by increasing court fees a few dollars.

In 1990 and 1991, 10 test Family Courts, including one in Chesapeake, had proved highly successful. A survey of litigants showed far more satisfaction with Family Court than with the dual system of Juvenile and Domestic Relations Courts and Circuit Courts.

The 10 pilot Family Courts were faster, cheaper and more prone to use mediation than other courts. They lessened the agony of families breaking apart.

The 1994 General Assembly was expected to approve the court fee to set up the Family Courts, but everything went wrong in the heat of partisan politics.

Gov. George F. Allen was new in office, having campaigned against increasing taxes. The court-fee increase looked to him like a tax increase. Also, Republicans knew that if they approved Family Court funding, the Democrats, holding the slim majority, would name all 32 new judges statewide.

Many Democrats cooled on the Family Court proposal, saying they didn't want to pass a fee increase that Allen would veto, while accusing them of trying to hike taxes.

Nothing happened in 1995. This session, bills have been introduced in both houses to fund the Family Courts, now creating 33 judgeships. The Senate Courts of Justice Committee passed the Family Court bill last Thursday. It now goes to the Senate Finance Committee for review.

The bill is the No. 1 priority of Chief Justice of the Virginia Supreme Court Harry L. Carrico, whose duties include heading the Virginia court system. It is a high priority of the Virginia Bar Association, the League of Women Voters of Virginia, the Virginia Federation of Women's Clubs, and Action Alliance for Virginia's Children and Youth, an umbrella group for organizations supporting children.

If partisan politics again block the Family Courts, Virginians will have every reason to be upset, for the personal agony and needless expense and delays of the current dual-court family system will continue.

 

Old Story but a good one

Drug bust leads to huge police corruption probe

(CNN) -- The investigation that exposed an allegedly corrupt Virginia sheriff's department began with a package containing vials of a date-rape drug.

Although Drug Enforcement Administration agents didn't know it at the time, the package was shipped to a house that belonged to a sergeant with the Henry County Sheriff's Office.

According to a grand jury indictment, the DEA intercepted the package, delivered it undercover and arrested self-described middleman William Randall Reed in March 2005. Reed agreed to cooperate and quickly pointed the finger at Sgt. James Allen Vaught.

Reed said he paid Vaught with cash and Ketamine, the so-called date rape drug, to use the house as a drug drop. The house also was used by other members of the sheriff's office for parties and extramarital trysts, the federal indictment states.

Reed also told authorities that he had helped Vaught sell cocaine the deputy had seized from a suspect.

Vaught resigned from the department soon after Reed's arrest and, a few months later, agreed to cooperate with investigators. He admitted to Reed's allegations and agreed to wear a wire to record conversations with his former colleagues.

The result was a 48-count indictment unsealed Thursday with the arrests of longtime Sheriff Harold Franklin Cassell and 17 others. A dozen of them wore or had worn the uniform of the Henry County Sheriff's Office. (Watch a prosecutor describe 'disgraceful' corruption -- 2:13 )

Some of them are accused of stealing cocaine, marijuana and weapons from suspects and the sheriff's evidence property room and selling the contraband to criminals, who put it back on the street.

Others are accused of distributing steroids and weapons, including a machine gun with an obliterated serial number.

The indictment says the corruption had been going on since 1998.

"These were drugs and guns that were seized as part of their law enforcement duties that were then stolen from the property room and put back out on the streets," U.S. Attorney John L. Brownlee said.

"You have law enforcement [officers] risking their lives to take these guns off the streets and then a very few members of law enforcement putting them right back out there."

Cassell was elected sheriff of county, population 58,000, in 1992. His department employs 122 people, 96 of them sworn law enforcement officers.

Today, in the wake of the indictment, the sheriff's office is being run by the Virginia State police.

Besides the sheriff, those named in the indictment include a captain, three sergeants, eight deputies -- including two vice officers -- a former employee of the U.S. postal service and a former probation officer.

One deputy, Walter R. Hairston, allegedly gave Vaught marijuana and cocaine he used to train the department's drug-sniffing dogs. The contraband was then sold, the indictment says.

According to the indictment, the DEA called to report a drug shipment to a "Brad Martin's house" in 2001. The call was taken by Martin, a sheriff's deputy.

Martin, Hairston and four other deputies, along with alleged drug dealer Wilbert Herman Brown, are accused in the indictment of racketeering. They allegedly made up a corrupt organization that stole and distributed drugs, including crack cocaine, and obstructed justice.

Cassell was told by authorities about the shipment to Martin's house, as well as other allegations of illegal activity in the department, and did nothing, the indictment alleges.

Instead, according to the indictment, Cassell tipped off targets of the investigation, lied to investigators and helped Vaught launder drug profits.

Henry County, hard against the North Carolina line in Virginia's southern Piedmont region, is perhaps best known for the Martinsville Speedway, where NASCAR races are held twice a year. It used to boast it was the "sweatshirt capital of the world," according to The Associated Press.

The county's textile and furniture industries have seen better times, and its unemployment rate is higher than the state average.

Does the VA flag Violate VA Beach City code

VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. (AP) - Police confiscated two display photos of scantily clad men and a woman from an Abercrombie & Fitch store and cited the manager on a misdemeanor obscenity charge, authorities said.

fine with that said, then I guess this summer I shouldn't see any g-string bathing suit on the beach, no butt cracks at all and I better not see the state flag in the air, with its female warrior breast out in the open

"A deep blue field contains the seal of Virginia with the Latin motto " Sic Semper Tyrannis" - "Thus Always to Tyrants". Adopted in 1776. The two figures are acting out the meaning of the motto. Both are dressed as warriors. The woman, Virtue, represents Virginia. The man holding a scourge and chain shows that he is a tyrant. His fallen crown is nearby."

VA - Alicia's Law suffers a defeat in the House of Delegates

02/07/2008

A defeat for a law that would protect children from online sexual predators in the House of Delegates.

Alicia's Law is named for a woman who was sexually assaulted when she was 13 by an online sexual predator from Virginia. The law would've provided money for more investigators and create three forensic computer labs.

Law enforcement agencies say they know of more than 19,000 computers in Virginia where hard core child pornography is being stored and shared, but say they don't have the resources to go after them.

An identical bill sponsored by Bath County Senator Creigh Deeds is still awaiting approval for funding in the Senate

Yet they have the resources to go after those who fall behind in child support. I guess child support is more of an issue then child porn in VA, since they get money for the Fed's for child support and not for going after child porn makers...... VA is really becoming a Fuckup State to work or to live.

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Federal judge rules prisoners cannot be forced to sleep on floor to ease overcrowding

I can only hope some one in VA jails like Chesapeake force them to get more bunks

View the article here

This happens everywhere. And yeah, it's cruel & unusual, so thank God this was deemed unconstitutional. Wonder if anything will change? I doubt it.

So sleeping on the floor in jail or prison is "cruel and unusual" punishment, but if you are a sex offender and made to sleep in a tent by a riverbed or under a bridge, that is not? Sounds like more double-standard BS to me.

09/24/2007 LOS ANGELES — A federal judge has ruled that forcing county jail inmates to sleep on the floor to relieve overcrowding is unconstitutional.

U.S District Judge Dean D. Pregerson said in a ruling released Friday that jail officials violated inmates' right to protection from cruel and unusual punishment, and were guilty of "deliberate indifference" for failing to provide them with bunks.

"This is quite an extraordinary ruling," said attorney Stephen Yagman, who represented prisoners involved in a class-action lawsuit. "I've never seen anything like it."

Attorney Paul B. Beach, who represented the county in the lawsuit, did not immediately respond to a telephone message left seeking comment early Monday by The Associated Press. He declined comment to the Los Angeles Times on Sunday.

Sheriff's Department spokesman Steve Whitmore said the practice of having inmates sleep on the floor "is over, and has been for a while now."
- Yeah right! I'll believe that when I see it. You could probably walk into any jail or correctional facility and find this right now.

The lawsuit covers inmates who were forced to sleep on the floor from December 2000 to May 2005. Yagman said Sunday that he had two other class-action cases involving inmates who were allegedly forced to sleep on floors from May 2005 to as recently as this year.

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Admitted child molester (COP) gets 45 years -- all suspended

View the article here

Because he's a cop! That is why! Total BS! MAJOR SLAP ON THE WRIST HERE! Protecting the "Good Ole' Boys!"

10/04/2007

NEWPORT - A former Newport News police officer pleaded guilty Thursday to six counts of indecent liberties with children under 14, getting a 45-year prison sentence -- with all 45 years suspended.

Randolph Drew Smith, now 60, admitted to three
counts of fondling a teenage boy in 1982 and three counts of doing the
same with a different teenage boy between 1994 and 1995. All counts
occurred while he was a police officer.

According to a detailed summary provided at the Newport News Circuit Court hearing Wednesday, five
of the incidents involved, in part, Smith bringing the boys to climax
while they were lying with him in his bed -- and once suggesting that
one of the boys do the same to him.

The Newport News Commonwealth's Attorney's Office, in a plea agreement, agreed that Smith would get no time in prison in return for pleading guilty to the crime.

The plea agreement, accepted wholly by Circuit Court Judge Timothy S. Fisher, also requires Smith to get supervised probation for two years,
maintain good behavior for 15 years, have no direct contact with either
victim or "any juvenile males" aside from relatives who are supervised
by another adult.

He must also submit a sample of his DNA to the state, get treatment in a sex offender program and register with the state's sex offender list.

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OT: Judge throws out case against Chesapeake circuit court clerk

See the courts staff take care of their own. These companies pay research to research land deeds before the sell of any land, so in fact 90% of the work required is done by outside source, then why should it take so long for the clerk to o their job, it should.. However I bet they inform the tax office ASAP so they can make sure they get their money...

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CHESAPEAKE – A judge has thrown out a lawsuit against Chesapeake’s Circuit Court Clerk Faye Mitchell over her office’s backlog in processing land transactions two years ago.

Visiting Circuit Judge Pamela Baskerville stopped the lawsuit by title company ReQuire LLC of Virginia Beach from proceeding Wednesday. She ruled that the company had no standing to file for damages. In the lawsuit, ReQuire argued that state law provides for damages if documents called “certificates of satisfactions’’ are not properly and timely recorded.

Mitchell’s attorney, Jeff Rosen of the Pender & Coward lawfirm, argued that the case should be dropped because the title company had not suffered any specific damages. Rosen also argued that the state law applied to the actual property owners who may have suffered damages.

“The clerk is pleased with the court’s ruling and believes that the case lacked any merit from the start,’’ Rosen said.

At the time of the lawsuit, the backlog problem existed for several years and grew worse during the city’s housing boom two years ago. Before Mitchell took office in 2004, former clerk Lillie Hart called the staffing level in her deeds office inadequate and blamed the situation on state budget cuts.

Blog Update

I have Delete over twenty some post that I thought doesn't fit this blog theme.

In this blog Judges Olds is mention alot, Well since she was the judge on my case for the first 10 years of it that is why she is mention in this blog. Please note that she was only on the bench for five to six months before she hear my first case, which at the time had nothing to do with Visitation or Child Custody.

Over time her fair and impartiality change to a bias against me simply because I wouldn't bow down to my ex-wife and let her walk over me.

In most of my case I didn't have a lawyer, those are the ones I got slammed in, the ones with a lawyer were mostly dismiss or found in my favor.