Virginia

In the first decision ever in Virginia to address the issue of moot arguments, the state Supreme Court decided Thursday that a judge incorrectly denied a local newspaper access to trial exhibits in a 2011 child murder case.

The justices also ruled that the case was not moot despite the fact that the contested documents sought by the Newport News Daily Press were released to the public two years ago.

A Virginia woman being sued by her home contractor for libel won't have to remove negative comments she posted on Internet review sites about him, the Virginia Supreme Court ruled.

The state’s high court reversed a Fairfax County Circuit Court judge’s ruling ordering Jane Perez to delete portions of her review of the contractor on Yelp and Angie’s List. In her review, Perez mentioned that her jewelry was missing. She also referenced the outcome of a suit brought by the contractor against Perez for nonpayment.

Update, Oct. 23: Kiriakou pleaded guilty today to one count of disclosing information identifying a covert agent and will likely be sentenced to two and a half years years imprisonment under a plea deal with prosecutors. As part of the agreement, the remaining four counts of the indictment, including three counts of violating the Espionage Act, were dismissed. Kiriakou is scheduled to be sentenced in January.

A Virginia trial court threw out a $3 million libel verdict against a local newspaper, finding that a local school official failed to show that the allegedly defamatory article was published with actual malice.

E-mail correspondence among school board members prior to the controversial closing of a public elementary school did not constitute secret meetings that violate Virginia’s Freedom of Information Act, the state Supreme Court ruled Thursday.

A Virginia appellate court avoided deciding if a newspaper had a right of access to trial exhibits in a child murder case, despite a dissenting judge’s opinion that a procedural issue should not have barred a ruling that sealing the records violated the media’s First Amendment rights.

Transcripts of pretrial hearings in the case of a Virginia man accused of molesting three girls at his daughter’s slumber party were made publicly available by a Virginia state court, reversing an emergency order to seal the records in February.

Judge William T. Newman, Jr. unsealed the records on March 22. He was unavailable for comment and it was not clear why he decided to make them public.

The Virginia Supreme Court upheld a 2010 ruling that a former Newport News judge defamed a former court official when she told a newspaper the court official was “institutionalized.”