Portsmouth Legal Blog

When developing their estate plans, Virginia residents can structure a trust so that it can be used to achieve their specific goals. It can be also structured to simultaneously give the trustee the tools needed to achieve those goals while dealing with ongoing economic and investment factors. In order to properly structure their trust, individuals have to decide if they will fund it straightaway, over a certain period of time or upon their death.

Many people choose to use a revocable, or living trust as a part of their estate plan. A revocable trust, which is not funded until the death of the settlor, holds all the person's instructions for how the estate is to be divided among surviving loved ones. It also specifies how each beneficiary's share in the trust is to be administered, regulated and distributed. For people who are concerned about the welfare of their minor children, a trust can be used to designate who will be able to make financial decisions on behalf of the children and use the trust funds to pay for their health care and education expenses until they reach adulthood.

Virginia readers might be interested to learn that, on June 17, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a bid to expand double jeopardy protections for individuals charged with state and federal crimes. Experts say the case could impact President Donald Trump's former campaign manager, Paul Manafort, who was convicted on federal charges during Special Counsel Robert Mueller's Russia investigation and could additionally face state charges.

The case before the court involved an Alabama man who was slapped with both state and federal charges for being a convicted felon in possession of a firearm. The man contended that the federal charges filed against him violated his constitutional rights. The Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution says that no one should be charged for the same offense twice, a legal concept known as "double jeopardy." However, in a 7-2 decision, the justices upheld a lower federal court ruling that found separate state and federal prosecutions are allowed under the law.

Violent crime has decreased sharply over the past decades in Virginia and across the United States. According to data from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, violent crimes fell 49 percent from 1993 to 2017. New neighborhood crime prevention apps, though, may have users feeling otherwise.

Neighborhood crime apps, such as Citizen, Amazon Ring's Neighbors and Nextdoor, are becoming increasingly popular. The apps send users local 911 alerts and coordinate coverage of local news. They also encourage people to report crimes. Users report that they get alerts from anything to someone ringing their doorbell and running away to "suspicious" minorities who are walking in the neighborhood.

While not all states allow sobriety checkpoints, Virginia has decided that the importance of public safety outweighs a resident's right from unreasonable search and seizure. However, there are still ways to keep from getting stopped at one. Here are just a few.