Transparency News 7/24/14

Thursday, July 24, 2014  

State and Local Stories

People who rely on buses for transportation on the Peninsula have several new websites and mobile apps to provide real-time schedule information to make their commute easier. That was welcome news to Judith Brown, president of the Hampton Roads Public Transit Association. Brown actively seeks public transportation in Hampton Roads and when she travels and said many of her friends rely on bus schedule apps that provide accurate information about when buses will arrive at transfer stations and stops. "I can see how it would be extremely helpful to constantly know what is going on," she said. "It gives you confidence in the system."
Daily Press

Chesterfield County supervisors will begin delivering prayers themselves at the start of their board meetings, changing a long-controversial policy that was criticized as unconstitutional in the wake of a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision. The county’s prayer policy required ministers who delivered invocations before meetings to be ordained religious leaders of monotheistic religions that follow Judeo-Christian traditions but instructed them to keep their prayers generic.
Times-Dispatch

Portsmouth attorney Sterling Weaver is suing WAVY-TV for defamation, claiming the station maligned him in a story about his arrest on an assault charge. Weaver is seeking $5 million, according to the lawsuit filed this week in U.S. District Court. WAVY has denied the allegations. In a Feb. 6 newscast, WAVY reported that Weaver had been indicted on felony assault and misdemeanor sexual battery charges for an alleged incident involving a female deputy in a Portsmouth courtroom. The deputy accused Weaver of inappropriately touching her. During that report, WAVY also said it "did some digging into Weaver's past" and discovered that he had been convicted of assault and sentenced to 30 days in jail for grabbing a prosecutor by the throat in 2006, according to the lawsuit. The station, however, failed to report that Weaver appealed that case to a Circuit Court judge who dismissed it after Weaver remained on good behavior for a year, the suit says. He did not serve jail time in that case.
Virginian-Pilot

Norfolk City Manager Marcus Jones often enjoys the good graces of his bosses on the City Council. But Tuesday night was different.  "The manager's taken a couple hits tonight," Mayor Paul Fraim noted during the informal session, where four council members expressed displeasure with various aspects of city management. Councilman Andy Protogyrou led the charge. Protogyrou had called for an investigation of Andrew Zoby Jr., the city-contracted plumber sentenced to 15 months in prison following an FBI investigation. Zoby bribed city employees and overbilled the city for years. In a three-sentence memo delivered to the council on Friday, Jones said a city investigation found no wrongdoing beyond two city employees who took bribes from Zoby. The brief memo didn't sit well with Protogyrou, who said he expected a full report. "It's ironic that of all the nights, tonight we have a discussion on fraud, managing fraud and risk, tone, culture, control and policies," Protogyrou said. "And what bothers me is, we as a council know nothing as to what went on. "For us to receive our information from the newspaper is not right."
Virginian-Pilot

The city of Martinsville has removed from its employment application a question on whether an applicant has been convicted of a crime out of concern that applicants who answer yes might face discrimination. The effort is part of a statewide movement, City Manager Leon Towarnicki told Martinsville City Council on Tuesday. Another sheet in the application packet still asks about criminal histories. Towarnicki said the sheet will be taken out of submitted packets before department heads conducting interviews see completed applications. Despite concerns about people with criminal histories potentially facing discrimination when applying for jobs, Towarnicki indicated that the city sometimes needs to know whether applicants have been convicted. An example he mentioned is if a person convicted of embezzlement were to apply for a position in the finance department.
Martinsville Bulletin

National Stories

The head of the IRS confirmed Wednesday that investigators looking into missing emails from ex-agency official Lois Lerner have found and are reviewing "backup tapes" -- despite earlier IRS claims that the tapes had been recycled.  IRS Commissioner John Koskinen, testifying before a House oversight subcommittee, stressed that he does not know "how they found them" or "whether there's anything on them or not." But he said the inspector general's office advised him the investigators are reviewing tapes to see if they contain any "recoverable" material. 
Fox News

Federal Trade Commission commissioner Julie Brill has some serious reservations about the collection of health data by consumer apps. In a nutshell, the Commissioner made clear that she considers collection and use of data to be one and the same — and she thinks there should be heavy restrictions, which would have a major impact on the future of mobile health.
Venture Beat

The U.S. Supreme Court prevented an Arizona death row inmate from delaying his execution date in order to receive information on the drugs to be used in his execution. The denial overturns a decision by a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals in San Francisco (9th Cir.) that ruled capital prisoner Joseph Wood’s requests for information on the drugs the state planned to use to execute him had sufficient merit to delay his execution, scheduled for Wednesday.
Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press
 

Editorials/Columns

Yesterday, we posted regarding the Supreme Court of Virginia’s recent damages order in the ATI v. UVA FOIA case decided in April. A central sentence of that post was that “We’re at a loss to identify any basis for the $250 in damages that the Supreme Court of Virginia ordered.” The post noted that we would bring the matter to the attention of others, seeking their insight/explanation, that we would provide an update if more information became available, and that we hoped things were not as bad as they seemed. (In general, if you meet someone in the law who’s not open to new information and the possibility of things not being as expected, run the other way.) Both on Twitter and off, leaders in Virginia’s legal & appellate community responded. Thanks Peter Vieth, Steve Emmert, and Jay O’Keefe!  This post provides the explanation missed yesterday and then offers further thoughts in light of it.  In sum, things are not as bad as they seemed, but they’re not good either.
Open Virginia Law

The Roberts Court has proven to be a champion of the First Amendment, ruling in favor of First Amendment protections in the majority of 10 First Amendment cases before the U.S. Supreme Court during the term that began in October 2013 and ended in June. Yet, increasingly narrow holdings and exceptions for national security purposes, and a continuation of decisions supporting certain First Amendment rights for corporations, lead some observers to question in what direction the  Court’s First Amendment jurisprudence will go. Two First Amendment cases in which the Court denied certiorari (declined to review the lower court decision) are also included in this abbreviated summary.  Cases are arranged  by freedom – Religion, Speech, Press, Assembly, Petition – in the order that they were argued, and separated between cases decided and cases in which review was denied.
Megan Chester & Brian Palumbo, First Amendment Center