Tag: virginia

Virginia Lawmaker Slams Governor For Vetoing Bill To Protect Marijuana Consumers’ Parental Rights

The House sponsor of legislation in Virginia that aimed to protect the parental rights of lawful cannabis consumers is criticizing Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s decision last week to veto the bill.

If enacted, HB 833 would have prevented the state from using marijuana alone as evidence of child abuse or neglect and, further, established that drug testing in child custody and visitation matters “shall exclude testing for any substance permitted for lawful use by an adult” under the state’s alcohol, cannabis and drug laws.

Youngkin vetoed the bill on Friday, writing in a message that “the proposed legislation, aiming to address a non-existent problem, has potential consequences that may expose children to harm.”

Del. Rae Cousins (D), the bill’s sponsor, said in a statement on Monday that the governor “is turning his back on the needs of our children and neglecting their well-being by encouraging the courts to move forward with unnecessary family separations.”

“We have seen how this is playing out in our courts; with Black and Brown families receiving harsher mandates from our judges for legal and responsible substance use,” the lawmaker said. “Family separation has devastating effects both on our communities and on the well-being of children, and by vetoing this legislation, Governor Youngkin is telling our courts that they can continue to unnecessarily tear children away from their parents.”

On its path to the governor’s desk, the legislation won unanimous or near-unanimous approval in votes on the Senate floor. The House was more divided, with Democrats generally in favor, though the proposal garnered some Republican votes, as well.

“I am deeply disappointed in Governor Youngkin’s decision to veto this bipartisan, commonsense bill that simply helps families stay together,” Cousins said.

The bill now returns to the legislature, where two thirds of both houses will have to approve it in order to override Youngkin’s veto. A companion Senate version of the measure, SB 115, also passed the legislature this session but has not yet been transmitted to the governor’s desk.

The proposal says a person’s “lawful possession or consumption” of state-legal substances would “not serve as a basis to restrict custody or visitation unless other facts establish that such possession or consumption is not in the best interest of the child.” An enactment clause would have directed the state Board of Social Services to amend its regulations, guidance documents and other materials to comply with the provisions of the bill.

Cousins, in the statement from her office, noted that courts “would still have full ability to assess what is in the best interests of the child, including the risk of physical or mental harm.”

Advocates have said they’re disappointed with Youngkin’s veto decision but pledged to continue pushing for the policy change.

“Disappointed doesn’t describe how it feels for the veto to come down after two years of pushing this proposal,” Chelsea Higgs Wise, executive director of the group Marijuana Justice, told Marijuana Moment last week, adding that organizers “will be back next year and every year until we get it right.”

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Fireworks Erupt After Virginia Lt. Gov. Winsome Sears Refers to Transgender State Senator as ‘Sir’

Fireworks erupted in the Virginia State Senate on Monday afternoon after Lt. Gov. Winsome Sears referred to transgender Senator Danica Roem as “sir” during floor deliberations.

The chamber was forced into recess twice over Democrat tantrums because Sears initially refused to apologize.

“I understand Senator Roem is upset,” Sears said. “I’m not here to upset anyone. I’m here to do the job the people of Virginia have called me to do.”

Yahoo News reports, “Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears eventually said she was sorry, but she did not specifically say that to Sen. Danica Roem, D-Prince William County. Instead, she looked at each section of the chamber and said, ‘I apologize.’”

“However, she appeared agitated in making that apology, saying that while she meant no disrespect in her comment, she chastised Senate Democrats for what she claimed was ‘showing disrespect towards me,’” the report added.

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Virginia Senate passes bill to give Medicaid-style health insurance to illegal immigrants

A bill in the Virginia Senate passed entirely along party lines on Tuesday to give illegal immigrant children access to the state-funded comprehensive health care coverage. The “Cover All Kids” plan still needs to be approved by the Democrat majority House of Delegates before it will head to Governor Glenn Youngkin’s desk, where he will have the opportunity to approve or veto the plan. Virginia has about 251,000 illegal immigrants.

The bill was sponsored by Sen. Ghazala Hashmi of Richmond, who said that health care is a right for everyone. “We want to make sure that Virginia is living up to its promise to its children,” she said. “Currently, 88,000 children in Virginia currently lack access to healthcare coverage. Virginia stands at the 25th position in the country concerning uninsured children, this is a statistic that must be altered.”

SB231 bears similarities in eligibility to the Medicaid program in the state but states that it is to “establish a program to provide state-funded comprehensive health care coverage for individuals in the Commonwealth who (i) are under 19 years of age” who “but for their immigration status would be eligible for medical assistance services through the Commonwealth’s program of medical assistance services established pursuant to Title XIX or XXI of the Social Security Act.” Illegal immigrant families who are at 205% of the federal poverty level, or earn about $51,000 per year for a three-person family, would be eligible to access the health care.

This means essentially that the state is expanding a Medicaid style program to illegal immigrant minors. The bill also states that The Department of Medical Assistance Services “shall not disclose information obtained by the program established by this section to any federal, state, or local government entity, law-enforcement officer, or law-enforcement agency for any purpose related to civil immigration enforcement,” unless the individual consents or there is a warrant.

Republican State Sen. Glen Sturtevant spoke about the bill, saying “This session, Virginia Democrats have introduced bills that directly incentivize illegal immigration,” Sturtevant said. “They want to grant illegal immigrants driver’s licenses that are valid for up to eight years. Now, they’re also working to divert limited resources from low-income Virginians to pay for healthcare for illegal immigrants. That will cost Virginia taxpayers more than $100 million just in this decade.”

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Effort to end child marriages in Virginia going to House floor for a vote

Activists and survivors are pushing to completely bar child marriages in Virginia, where exceptions still allow them.

In 2016, the commonwealth became the first state to limit marriage to those who are legal adults, but through a complicated judicial process, some 16- and 17-year-olds could still win permission to marry. In 2018, 23 minors got married. Since 2019, another 27 have wed.

Now a bill is being considered to remove any exception, which 10 other states have already done. The Northern Virginia-based Tahirih Justice Center has been working nationwide to end marriage before age 18.

“One child married is too many,” Tahirih Justice Center Director of Public Policy Casey Swegman said. “Forced or not, it sets people up for devastating short- and long-term consequences, and in fact, delaying marriage to 18 or beyond will set all people up to be better off.”

At a recent hearing in Richmond, a representative for faith-based nonprofit Family Foundation urged lawmakers to stick with current law.

“There are good reasons for people to get married under this very reasonable exception,” Family Foundation legislative counsel Josh Hetzler said.

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Virginia Senators Unanimously Approve Bill To Prevent Marijuana From Being Used As Evidence Of Child Abuse

A Virginia Senate committee voted unanimously in favor of advancing a bill on Wednesday that would prevent the state from using marijuana alone as evidence of child abuse or neglect. The change is meant to protect parents and guardians from discrimination around cannabis use and possession, which the commonwealth legalized in 2021.

The Senate Courts of Justice Committee, voted 15–0 to report the measure, SB 115, which is sponsored by Senate President Pro Tempore Louise Lucas (D). If it becomes law, the measure would further provide that drug testing in child custody and visitation matters “shall exclude testing for any substance permitted for lawful use by an adult” under the state’s alcohol, cannabis and drug laws.

A person’s “lawful possession or consumption” of those substances, the bill says, “shall not serve as a basis to restrict custody or visitation unless other facts establish that such possession or consumption is not in the best interest of the child.”

According to a Department of Planning and Budget summary of the legislation, an enactment clause would direct the state Board of Social Services to amend its regulations, guidance documents and other materials to comply with the provisions of the bill.

The changes would incur no fiscal impact, the department’s statement says.

An identical measure, HB 833, passed the full House of Delegates in a 56–43 vote last month.

Chelsea Higgs Wise, of the advocacy group Marijuana Justice, which backed the bill, told Marijuana Moment she’s optimistic about its chances of being enacted. The governor’s administration gave suggestions last year, she said, which were taken into account along with feedback from the Senate committee.

The group also worked with Virginia NORML, which Wise said had reported that some medical marijuana patients had been impacted by the current law.

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Parents Launch Recall Effort Against Virginia School Board Member Sworn In on Stack of LGBTQ Books

The Gateway Pundit reported that Fairfax County School Board member Karl Frisch was sworn in for his second term on a stack of controversial LGBTQ books instead of the Bible.

Now, parents have launched a recall effort against Frisch.

Frisch chose five LGBTQ-themed books “most frequently banned by other school systems,” according to his campaign website.

The books included descriptions of pedophilia, including violent child rape.

“He was sworn in on a stack of the five LGBTQ-themed books most frequently banned by other school systems,” Frisch’s campaign website announced. “Currently, the Board’s Vice Chair, Frisch becomes its Chair on January 1. He is the first LGBTQ+ person elected to local office in Virginia’s largest county and one of only four openly LGBTQ+ school board members in the Commonwealth out of roughly 800 members.”

National File reports that the coalition of parents is led by Fairfax County mom Stacy Langton, who has spearheaded efforts to flush pedophilia out of public education in the DC suburbs. Langton shared a YouTube video explaining Frisch’s offenses.

In the video, Langton says, “Karl Frisch’s swearing-in on December 13th on a stack of three pornographic books which I’ve exposed in our school libraries is an obvious middle finger to parents in Fairfax County.”

“These books contain explicit illustrations of a man having sex with a boy; oral sex, anal sex, and masturbation. They also contain and describe in graphic detail the rape of a 13-year-old child by an adult male cousin. These depictions of pedophilia are an abomination. Karl has stated repeatedly that he considers these books a benefit to your children.”

“We have laws against pornography in this country in front of minors. If they can’t legally buy it in town or be shown it, it doesn’t magically become okay on a public school campus.”

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GOP Virginia Governor Doesn’t Have ‘Any Interest’ In Legalizing Marijuana Sales Under New Democrat-Led Bills

As Virginia Democrstic lawmakers renew their push to legalize marijuana sales, the Republican governor says the issue isn’t something he’s personally interested in advancing this year.

While advocates are hopeful that commercial legalization could move through both chambers of the legislature, which are now controlled by Democrats, the remarks from Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) indicate that the plan might not be enacted into law even if it is approved by the House of Delegates and Senate.

Following his State of the Commonwealth address on Wednesday, Youngkin was asked about the prospects of further cannabis reform.

“I just don’t have a lot of interest in pressing forward with marijuana legislation,” he told reporters.

Cannabis is “an area that I really don’t have any interest in,” the governor said.

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A JURY FOUND THEM NOT GUILTY OF KILLING A COP. A JUDGE SENTENCED THEM TO LIFE ANYWAY.

More than two decades ago, a jury found Terrence Richardson and Ferrone Claiborne not guilty of murdering a police officer. But a judge disagreed, and unilaterally sentenced them to life in prison. After 22 years behind bars, their case is now in the hands of Virginia’s highest court, which will decide whether to allow the men to admit new evidence they say proves their innocence.

In 1998, Waverly police officer Allen Gibson was shot and killed with his own gun in the woods behind an apartment complex in the small town of less than 2,500 people. Evette Newby, who lived in the apartment complex facing the woods, told police she’d seen three men go into the woods. Then, she said, she saw two of them struggling with Gibson and heard a loud pop. She identified two of the men as Richardson and Claiborne. Newby also identified another man at the scene, but police told her it was impossible for that man to have been present because he was incarcerated. Newby later said law enforcement officials pressured her to say she saw Richardson shoot Gibson, which she would not agree to, and gave her small amounts of money.

There was no physical evidence linking Richardson and Claiborne to the crime, but they emerged as the primary suspects in the ensuing investigation, despite the fact that police had evidence suggesting another man may have been involved in: Leonard Newby, the witness’ brother. An attorney currently representing Richardson and Claiborne says the defense never knew police had evidence pointing to another suspect.

Richardson and Claiborne insisted they had nothing to do with Gibson’s death. But their attorneys at the time told them that they could be sentenced to death if they went to trial and lost. Richardson and Claiborne were poor Black men accused of killing a white police officer in the South. Out of fear for their lives, they took guilty pleas.

“He said if you go to trial and you mess around and you lose, you could get the death penalty,” Richardson told local news.

Richardson pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter and was sentenced to ten years in state prison with five years suspended. Claiborne pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge, as an accessory to Richardson’s crime. The county attorney at the time, David Chappell, said he made those plea bargains with Richardson and Claiborne because the case was too compromised: One of the first officers to arrive on the scene was Waverly Police Chief Warren Sturrup, who picked up Gibson’s gun with his bare hands and, in doing so, tainted any fingerprints that may have been on the gun. 

Gibson’s family was outraged by what they saw as a lenient sentence for Richardson and Claiborne, who, in their view, had pleaded guilty to being involved in Gibson’s death. Following public outcry, federal prosecutors brought additional charges against the pair accusing them of selling crack cocaine and murdering a police officer during a drug deal gone wrong. 

In 2001, Richardson and Claiborne went to trial. A jury found them not guilty of officer Gibson’s murder, but guilty of selling crack. 

But in an unusual move, District Judge Robert E. Payne sentenced Richardson and Claiborne to life in prison using “acquitted conduct sentencing,” a legal mechanism approved by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1996. In that case, known as Watts, the court ruled that a jury’s acquittal does not prevent a judge from using the conduct the defendant was acquitted of against them when sentencing them for another charge.

“The Court’s decision to sentence Terrence and Ferrone to life in prison despite being found not guilty robbed due process of its very meaning,” said Jarrett Adams, Richardson and Claiborne’s attorney. “The U.S. Supreme Court must do away with its ruling in U.S. v Watts, which gives a judge the discretion to make a jury’s finding meaningless, and prevent further miscarriages of justice from occurring like the one we see in this case.”

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Cops Sneak Onto Man’s Property, Confiscate Surveillance Camera Without a Warrant

In April, a Virginia conservation police officer (known as a “game warden”) walked into the yard of a man named Joshua Highlander, saw a surveillance camera he had set up in his backyard, confiscated it without a warrant, and saved the photos from it.

I heard about Highlander’s case soon after I wrote about a town in Michigan hiring a drone operator to surveil one of its resident’s property. I called Highlander’s lawyer, Joe Gay, and explained that I’d been writing about surveillance for a long time, but wasn’t aware of other cases where law enforcement walked onto private property and confiscated a camera without a warrant. To me, it seemed like such a blatant violation of the man’s Fourth Amendment rights. “Am I missing something here?” I asked.

“No, that’s exactly what happened,” Gay said. “He has a 30-acre property, the warden put on camouflage, they snuck onto the property, they saw he had a trail camera in a field, they took it, they scared his wife and his son, who saw them as they were exiting the property, and they basically rummaged through his camera looking at all the pictures looking for evidence of hunting violations. Game wardens do this thing all the time.”

Conservation police in Virginia are the law enforcement branch of the Department of Wildlife Resources. As Gay mentioned, they enforce hunting rules in the state. Highlander is a deer and turkey hunter who has a series of Tactacam brand cameras on his property that are used to monitor wildlife movements and are popular among hunters.

Highlander was not cited for any sort of violation, but told me that earlier in the day before his camera was seized, he, his brother, and his father each legally shot turkeys elsewhere in the state and logged them (as is required by law) with the Department of Wildlife Resources.

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U.S. Park Police officer unintentionally fatally shoots fellow officer at Virginia gathering

An off-duty U.S. Park Police officer unintentionally shot and killed another off-duty officer over the weekend in Virginia while pulling a trigger on a gun he thought was unloaded, police said.

Alexander Roy, 25, was charged with involuntary manslaughter for killing 22-year-old Jesse Brown Hernandez while they were at a gathering in an apartment in McLean, Virginia, about 10 miles west of Washington, D.C.

Police were called to the scene shortly after midnight on Sunday.

Two others, including another U.S. Park Police officer, were also at the gathering. Police said alcohol is believed to be a factor in the shooting. Roy is being held at the Fairfax County Adult Detention Center on no bond.

Hernandez was found dead with a gunshot wound to the upper body. The investigation is ongoing and the Fairfax County Police Department is asking anyone with information about the incident to contact them.

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