Transparency News, 9/27/21

When the high-profile jail death of Jamycheal Mitchell in 2015 exposed a systemic lack of accountability, state officials pledged progress. A single investigator on part-time pay stepped in to do what state government had not: hold jails accountable and prevent abuse. The investigator, Steve Goff, reviewed nearly 140 deaths over three years, and his reports drove recommendations to close two jails he determined had repeatedly failed to keep people safe. As Goff worked to fulfill his mandate, state corrections officials worked to install one of their own as his boss late last year. That man, Ryan McCord, had been admonished by a judge eight months earlier for acting in bad faith and violating state open records laws, refusing to release information about how prison officials strip-searched visitors. From his first communications with Goff in March, McCord made clear that the Department of Corrections was now in control. Under pressure, Goff resigned. Public records obtained through FOIA requests and interviews by the Richmond Times-Dispatch show:
Richmond Times-Dispatch

A computer policy at Virginia Tech meant to protect students from intimidation and harassment by their peers is too vague and broad to be enforced, a federal judge has ruled.
U.S. District Judge Michael Urbanski on Wednesday granted a preliminary injunction sought by Speech First Inc., a conservative group that claimed some of Tech’s student conduct rules violate the First Amendment rights of students on the right. The injunction prohibits Tech from enforcing a policy that bars users of the university network from “intimidation, harassment and unwarranted annoyance” while the lawsuit is pending. Urbanski wrote that “the text of the policy, which is undoubtedly broad, arguably could proscribe the conduct in which students intend to engage, which is protected free speech.”  But the judge’s 53-page opinion stopped well short of what Speech First wanted. Urbanski let stand three other policies — dealing with bias-related incidents, discriminatory harassment and informational activities — that the group had attempted to dismantle.
The Roanoke Times

The results of the two recent surveys of Charlottesville’s police officers were a factor in City Manager Chip Boyle’s decision to fire the city’s chief of police, Boyles said at a recent city council meeting. The termination occurred shortly after the Central Virginia Police Benevolent Association publically released its externally-conducted survey of officers and Boyles learned that the Charlottesville Police Department conducted its own internal survey late last year. Considering the role the two surveys played in the chief’s firing, Charlottesville Tomorrow examined both to see what officers were saying about their leader and the department.
Charlottesville Tomorrow

A recall effort targeting Arlington’s top prosecutor is reportedly gaining some traction. In August, a political group named Virginians for Safe Communities launched a recall effort against Parisa Dehghani-Tafti, the Commonwealth’s Attorney for Arlington County and the City of Falls Church, as well as her counterparts Buta Biberaj and Steve Descano in Loudoun and Fairfax counties, respectively.
ARLnow

 

Russ Kick, a writer, editor and self-described “rogue transparency activist” who pried loose government records, using Freedom of Information Act requests to obtain overlooked documents and peek behind the curtain of official secrecy, died Sept. 12 at his home in Tucson. He was 52. Working largely on his own, without institutional support, Mr. Kick filed FOIA requests to obtain documents related to U.S. biological and chemical warfare programs, U.S. Border Patrol facilities, animal experimentation and a host of other issues. “Oftentimes it was those mundane requests that would be a critical resource years down the line,” said Michael Morisy, the co-founder and chief executive of MuckRock, a nonprofit news site where Mr. Kick had worked the past two years.
The Washington Post

 

Before she grasped what had happened, Judge James P. Fisher had sentenced Katie Orndorff to 10 days in jail without allowing her the benefit of counsel or even advising her of her rights. So did Fisher’s actions breach Virginia’s Canons of Judicial Conduct? While they seemed outrageous to me and the 30 or so protesters on the courthouse lawn Thursday, I am not a lawyer and don’t know what the threshold is for making such a  determination. Perhaps Fisher’s actions were legally justified. Perhaps they were beyond the pale. Who decides? By law, it’s the Judicial Inquiry and Review Commission. It is the state agency that, since 1971, has been responsible under the Virginia Constitution and state statutes for vetting allegations from the public, from lawyers, court staff and other jurists against judges accused of misconduct or physical or mental impairments that render them unfit for the job. Almost everything JIRC does is, by law, secret. Even lawyers like Brad Haywood who have filed complaints with JIRC against judges for alleged violations rarely learn anything about their complaints. Complaints emerge from their cocoon of secrecy only if JIRC finds a charge credible and egregious enough to advance to the Virginia Supreme Court for adjudication. According to JIRC, of the thousands of complaints it has handled in its 50 years, only 15 judges have had their cases reach the court: seven were censured, three were removed from the bench and five had their cases dismissed.
Bob Lewis, Virginia Mercury