Transparency News, 2/28/20
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February 28, 2020
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state & local news stories
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The Washington Post’s lawyer Wednesday morning filed a motion to open court proceedings in the case of a 17-year-old charged with murdering his mother and little brother on Valentine’s Day. The newspaper contends that Judge Melissa N. Cupp erred in closing Levi H. Norwood’s first Fauquier court hearing late Monday afternoon. Deputy Public Defender Ryan Ruzic moved that Judge Cupp close the proceedings just after Mr. Norwood entered the courtroom, and Commonwealth’s Attorney Scott Hook agreed. Judge Cupp’s handwritten order says she closed the hearing “to protect the privacy of the juvenile charged herein, to protect potential jurors from exclusion due to news reports and to protect the privacy of a potential juvenile witness.” But, Virginia law requires the case to remain in open court The Post’s attorney, Laurin H. Mills of Alexandria, wrote in the four-page motion filed Wednesday in Fauquier County Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court. “This is an issue that we’re going to fight in the courtroom and not in the press,” Mr. Ruzic said by phone late Wednesday afternoon. “We’re planning to fight their motion.”
FauquierNow.com
Virginia’s State Corporation Commission rolled out a new, online electronic filing system in December designed to make it easier for businesses in Virginia to file corporate documents and simplify the online search for business records. Instead, the switch to the new clerk’s information system, or CIS, has flooded the SCC’s office in Richmond with phone calls from people who are having trouble using the new portal. Others also say they have had difficulty filing necessary documents with the new system. The calls have clogged up the agency’s phone lines and forced the SCC to assign additional employees and hire a third-party call center to field the inquiries. The SCC also has expanded the hours for taking calls to 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. on weekdays.
Richmond Times-Dispatch
A former Dayton town manager and one-time town mayoral candidate accused of illegally logging into town email accounts made his first court appearance Thursday in Rockingham County Circuit Court. John Crim, 73, was indicted Feb. 18 on two felony counts of computer trespassing. He faces up to 10 years in prison if convicted. He turned himself in to the Rockingham County Jail later that day and was released on bond. Prosecutors claim Crim logged into town email accounts in June 2018, years after he left his position as town manager and while he was a candidate for mayor. They say it appears Crim was looking for emails that would reveal that the police department was told to lay off on issuing traffic tickets during tourist season.
Daily News Record
Circuit Court Judge Jeffery W. Parker was back on Gay Street in Washington this week reviewing earlier testimony, arguments and evidence presented by witnesses and lawyers alike in the case of Marian Bragg v the Board of Supervisors. Parker declined to rule on the lawsuit late Friday following a rigorous and challenging two-day bench trial. After closing arguments ended from both sides Parker, admitting to being tired, told the parties he would not be ruling at that moment, but preferred to take the matter “under advisement” and hand down an opinion at a later date, which he didn’t specify. Day two began with arguments about the admissibility of a memo Rappahannock County Attorney Peter Luke sent to the county’s Board of Supervisors in February 2016. Jackson Supervisor Ron Frazier tried to use the document in his testimony at the end of the first day, saying it laid out the process for selecting Luke’s replacement. When Frazier supplied copies to Parker, Konick, County Attorney Art Goff and local attorney Mike Brown (assisting Goff), Goff immediately objected. He said that the document had a bold-faced all-caps warning across the top stating that the memo was protected by lawyer-client privilege and was not for public disclosure. Because the “client” was the BOS as a whole, he said, Frazier could not unilaterally waive the privilege.
Rappahannock Record
Coverage of the first days of the trial
One Democrat says late nights in the General Assembly are an indication that his party took on too much this session. Both chambers adjourned at 1:20 a.m. on Thursday morning after working since noon on Wednesday. Lawmakers had until midnight to send bills with a fiscal impact to conference committee, a group of members from both parties chosen to work out disputes between House and Senate drafts. “There were so many bills that impacted the budget it literally was impossible to get our business done before midnight,” said Sen. Chap Petersen (D-34). Del. Ken Plum (D-36), the longest serving member in the House of Delegates, disagreed, saying the party can’t delay action on issues that need urgent attention. “People expect a response and by golly we will give them a response,” Plum said. “If I have to stay up late night to do that, I’m willing to do that.”
WAVY
stories of national interest
Internet platforms like Google can censor content, according to a ruling Wednesday from a federal appeals court in California. The unanimous decision came from the Ninth US Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco. In a suit, Prager University said that its videos featuring conservative viewpoints were flagged and demonetized, and that Youtube threatened "conservative viewpoints and perspectives on public issues." In the opinion, circuit judge M. Margaret McKeown wrote, "Despite YouTube's ubiquity and its role as a public facing platform, it remains a private forum, not a public forum subject to judicial scrutiny under the First Amendment."
c|net
editorials & columns
The U.S. Census Bureau is hoping that most people who live in the U.S. will use the internet to answer census questions, rather than filling out a paper form or providing those answers to a census taker in person, at their home. That would be cheaper – a plus for a budget-strapped Census Bureau – and could help ensure maximum turnout and accuracy of the count. For instance, databases could keep track of which homes have not yet responded to the survey, allowing census officials to target mailings and in-person visits to those locations, without needing to spend time chasing households that have already responded. However, as some of my own work on digital platforms and electronic commerce shows, collecting data online carries some significant risks that are new to the census and may undermine the accuracy of the count and the public’s trust in the process.
Anjana Susarla, Governing
