Portsmouth Legal Blog

When Virginia police officers want to search a suspect's home, car or possessions, they generally must first obtain a search warrant, and the judges who issue these warrants only do so when they are presented with probable cause to believe that useful evidence will be discovered. It may be logical to believe that the Fourth Amendment is pervasive and protects confidential electronic information just as it does personal papers, but that is not currently the case.

The federal government has not passed a law restricting police access to private electronic data, and only three states currently require law enforcement to provide search warrants to obtain it. In the overwhelming majority of cases, technology companies only ask for a subpoena before handing digital information over. This is of great concern to civil rights groups because obtaining a subpoena is relatively simple for police officers as establishing probable cause is not necessary.

Police officers in Virginia and around the country are often put under great pressure to make an arrest when the cases they investigate attract a lot of media attention. A study published in the Northeastern University Law Review suggests that this pressure results in detectives developing tunnel vision and ignoring potentially exculpatory evidence after they have identified a prime suspect. This was the conclusion that criminologists from Texas State University reached after studying 50 wrongful conviction cases.

One of the most worrying observations made by the researchers was the frequency with which detectives coerced false confessions from suspects they had become convinced were guilty. However, these findings are unlikely to come as a surprise to advocacy groups like the Innocence Project. The nonprofit group says that about one in three of the people they have helped to have exonerated were convicted of crimes they did not commit after being coerced into confessing.

Virginia residents are sometimes confused by the amount of paperwork that can be included in an estate plan, and their bewilderment sometimes grows when they find out that some of these documents have names that sound alike. It would be reasonable to assume that living wills and living trusts are broadly similar, but that is not the case. While their names may sound the same, the two documents actually serve very different purposes.

Living wills are drafted to provide physicians with guidance and instructions regarding end-of-life situations. They specify when life-prolonging treatment should end and only care that reduces pain and provides comfort should be administered. Documents like living wills are known as advanced medical directives. A life-prolonging procedure declaration is another type of advanced medical directive that provides doctors with a very different set of instructions. These documents tell medical professionals that their drafters wish to remain alive for as long as possible and want treatment to continue until every option has been exhausted.

Separated parents in Virginia may go through challenging times when their children say they want to change the custody arrangement. There are several reasons why a kid would make these requests. Examples range from serious situations like abuse or neglect to simply wanting to pursue a better educational opportunity. It is a big decision, and there are many issues for parents to consider before making a major change to how a family handles custody.

It is important for parents to communicate openly with their children and listen to what they have to say, especially if they are unhappy with their current living situation. In addition, it is important that both parties respect each other rather than use the potential change of residency as an emotional weapon. Parents should also think about how their children feel in the difficult environment that can come with a parental divorce. This may be particularly true if the parents do not get along well or have significant conflicts.