Justia Virginia Supreme Court Opinion Summaries

Defendant entered an Alford plea of guilty to an indictment charging him with grand larceny. Before the sentencing order became final, Defendant filed a motion to withdraw his guilty plea. The court ultimately denied the motion. Defendant subsequently filed a petition for habeas corpus, claiming that he had been denied he effective assistance of counsel because trial counsel had failed to base his motion to withdraw the guilty plea on the specific grounds of mistake, fear, misunderstanding, and misrepresentation. After an evidentiary hearing, the circuit court granted Defendant the writ. In granting the writ, the court relied on Justus v. Commonwealth. The Supreme Court reversed and dismissed the writ, holding (1) the circuit court applied an inapplicable standard in granting the writ, and (2) there was no evidence to support a conclusion that Defendant was denied the effective assistance of counsel or that manifest injustice occurred. View "Johnson v. Anis" on Justia Law

Seaman filed this action to recover maintenance and cure and compensatory and punitive damages from his former employer (Employer), claiming that he suffered PTSD and depression as a result of being gang-raped by uniformed Korean police officers while he was on shore leave from Employer's ship docked in Korea. The jury awarded Seaman $20,000,000 in compensatory damages and $5,000,000 in punitive damages. The circuit court granted Employer's motion for partial summary judgment precluding Seaman's denial of maintenance and cure, set aside the punitive damages award, and remitted the compensatory damages award to $2,000,000. Both parties appealed. The Supreme Court reversed and remanded the case for a new trial on all issues relating to the seaworthiness and Jones Act claims regarding Employer's actions after Seaman returned to the ship, and Seaman's claim for maintenance and cure benefits, holding (1) the circuit court erred by not ordering a new trial after concluding that the maintenance and cure claim for compensatory and punitive damages should not have been submitted to the jury; and (2) the circuit court erred in refusing the instruction proffered by Employer quoting the circuit court's pre-trial ruling on the Jones Act and seaworthiness claims, and the refusal was not harmless. View "Hale v. Maersk Line Ltd." on Justia Law

These appeals presented the same question of law and were therefore considered together. The question presented involved the interplay between the Constitution of Virginia and Va. Code 18.2-308.2, relating to jurisdiction of the circuit courts to restore rights to ship, transport, possess or receive firearms to a person who has lost those rights by suffering a felony conviction. The question arose where the convicted person's political disabilities had subsequently been restored by the Governor. The Supreme Court reversed the judgments in both cases and remanded, holding (1) firearm rights may only be restored to a convicted felon by a permit issued by a circuit court; (2) the Fairfax County circuit court erred in ruling that the first defendant's petition must be denied because the Governor had not given him a full restoration of rights; and (3) the Buchanan County circuit court of erred in ruling that the second defendant's petition must be denied because the Governor, by excepting firearm rights from his order removing political disabilities, had placed a condition on the defendant's right to possess firearms that precluded the court from considering the defendant's petition. View "Gallagher v. Commonwealth" on Justia Law

Defendant was convicted of abduction with intent to defile and commission of a subsequent violent sexual assault and was sentenced to life imprisonment. Defendant appealed, contending that the trial court erred by denying his motion to suppress testimony of the police officers regarding their surveillance of Defendant on the evening of the attack. Defendant argued that the officers, without first obtaining a search warrant, unlawfully installed a GPS device on his vehicle and traced his movements through use of the device, and therefore, the officers' testimony was fruit of the poisonous tree of an unlawful search. The court of appeals affirmed the conviction. Before the appeal to the Supreme Court, the U.S. Supreme Court decided United States v. Jones, which held that the government's placement of a GPS tracking device on a vehicle and its use of that device to monitor the vehicle's movements was a violation of the Fourth Amendment. In this case, the Supreme Court affirmed the convictions, holding (1) the installation of the GPS device on Defendant's van, without a valid search warrant, constituted an unconstitutional search; but (2) the admission of the officers' testimony was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. View "Foltz v. Commonwealth" on Justia Law

In these appeals the Supreme Court considered whether the Virginia Constitution provides for a cause of action by a landowner for inverse condemnation when the allegation of the complaint is that the landowner's property has been damaged by a diminution in value resulting from a public utility's construction and operation of an electrical transmission line for public use on nearby property. The trial court sustained the public utility's demurrers with prejudice, finding that because the complaints did not allege that the entire property had been rendered useless, and because the property had not lost all economic value, a damaging under the Constitution had not occurred. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding (1) the circuit court applied the wrong standard in reviewing the pleadings; but (2) under the proper standard, the complainants could not state a cause of action for declaratory relief for inverse condemnation when the sole damage alleged was a diminution in value arising from the public use of proximately located property, and therefore, the circuit court's judgment sustaining the demurrers was correct under the proper standard. View "Byler v. Va. Elec. & Power Co." on Justia Law

At issue in his case was whether the circuit court correctly determined that certain exchanges of e-mails between members of a local school board did not constitute a "meeting" within the meaning of Va. Code 2.2-3701 and, thus, did not violate the notice and open meeting requirements of the Virginia Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). The Supreme Court affirmed the judgment of the circuit court, holding (1) the court did not err in determining that the Board had not conducted an improper closed meeting in violation of the notice and open meeting requirements of the FOIA; and (2) the circuit court did not err in concluding that because the citizen requesting information under the FOIA had not substantially prevailed on the merits of the case, she was not entitled to an award of attorneys' fees and costs. View "Hill v. Fairfax County Sch. Bd." on Justia Law

Defendant Robert Charles Gleason, Jr. received two death sentences following pleas of guilty to capital murder in the killings of two fellow inmates, Harvey Grey Watson and Aaron Cooper. Although Defendant was found competent to waive appeal and did so, the Supreme Court conducted the required statutory review and affirmed the judgments of the circuit court, holding (1) the death sentences were not imposed under the influence of passion, prejudice, or any other arbitrary factor; and (2) the sentences were not excessive or disproportionate to the penalty imposed in similar cases, considering both the crime and the defendant. View "Gleason v. Commonwealth" on Justia Law

Defendant was indicted for aggravated malicious wounding and use of a firearm during an aggravated malicious wounding. During trial, the Commonwealth moved that the court declare a witness who claimed memory loss unavailable and admit the transcript of his preliminary hearing testimony. The court, relying on the court of appeals' decision in Jones v. Commonwealth, found the witness unavailable. Because the court ruled that the transcript was inadmissible, the court allowed Defendant's counsel at the hearing to testify about the witness's testimony. Defendant thereafter was convicted of both charges. The court of appeals affirmed. The Supreme Court reversed, holding that the trial court abused its discretion in declaring the witness unavailable, and the error was not harmless. Remanded. View "Turner v. Commonwealth" on Justia Law

After a jury trial, Defendant was convicted of, inter alia, use of a firearm while committing burglary and participation in a criminal street gang. A divided panel of the court of appeals affirmed the convictions, concluding that the circuit court did not err by finding the evidence was sufficient to convict Defendant of gang participation. The Supreme Court reversed and dismissed Defendant's convictions for gang participation and for use of a firearm in the commission of burglary, holding (1) the circuit court erred in admitting certain evidence offered to support the conviction of criminal street gang participation, and therefore, the Commonwealth failed to prove an essential element of the crime; and (2) the evidence was insufficient to support the conviction for use of a firearm in commission of burglary. View "Rushing v. Commonwealth" on Justia Law

John Rives was arrested for using profane, threatening, or indecent language over public airways, a misdemeanor. Convicted in the general district court, Rives appealed to the circuit court where he was again convicted. The court of appeals affirmed after applying the Miller v. California test for the definition of obscenity and finding that the phone calls made by Rives' met the Miller test for obscenity because the evidence was sufficient to permit a rational fact-finder to conclude that Rives' language had as its dominant theme an appeal to the prurient interest in sex and was therefore obscene within the meaning of the statute. The Supreme Court affirmed but for a slightly different reason, holding (1) the question of whether language used in telephonic communications is obscene is immaterial in cases involving threats to commit illegal or immoral acts, where the threat is made with the intent to coerce, intimidate or harass any person; and (2) Rives' language was clearly sufficient to enable a rational fact-finder to conclude that he was threatening the complainant with physical injury in the form of a sexual offense, with the obvious intent to intimidate and harass her. View "Rives v. Commonwealth" on Justia Law