Transparency News, 12/30/2022
Friday
December 30, 2022
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state & local news stories
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Newly obtained court documents show that a former Virginia trooper and recently hired Washington County deputy at the center of a triple homicide investigation in Riverside, California, had his right to purchase or possess a firearm revoked in 2016 after he was committed to a psychiatric facility for treatment. According to a treatment order and an accompanying notification letter that was sent to the Virginia State Police’s Central Criminal Records Exchange, Edwards, then 21, agreed to voluntary admission to a psychiatric hospital in February 2016, after being held for evaluation under a temporary detention order. According to the documents, Edwards had been advised that he was prohibited from purchasing, possessing or transporting a firearm. Under Virginia law, any person who is held on a TDO (temporary detainment order) and is subsequently admitted to a treatment facility, whether voluntarily or involuntarily, is prohibited from buying or possessing a firearm until that right is restored by a court. Violation of the law, according to Virginia Code, is punishable as a Class 1 misdemeanor. Virginia law provides an avenue for restoration of firearm rights after release from mental health treatment. According to the Code, those seeking to have those rights restored can petition the general district court in which they reside or in which treatment was ordered. No record of such a hearing taking place in Edwards’ case was found in public records. Additionally, the portion of the CCRE notification form designated for completion after restoration has occurred has not been filled out.
Smyth County News & Messenger
stories of national interest
Tennessee has not complied with its own lethal injection process ever since it was revised in 2018, resulting in several executions being conducted without proper testing of the drugs used, according to an independent review released on Wednesday. The report was requested by Republican Gov. Bill Lee, who paused all executions in May after acknowledging the state had failed to ensure its lethal injection drugs were properly tested. The oversight forced Lee in April to abruptly halt the execution of Oscar Smith an hour before he was to have been put to death. Lee’s administration has been reviewing the report for more than a week, declining to release it until the governor and his aides examined the hundreds of pagesdetailing the state’s death row process. Lee has maintained he is not trying to bury the report’s findings during the holidays.
Times News
