Governor Ralph Northam said the men, tried by all-white juries, were not given due process at a time when only Black men received death sentences for rape in Virginia
The governor of Virginia, Ralph Northam, has granted posthumous pardons to seven Black men who were executed in 1951 for the rape of a white woman.
The case attracted pleas for mercy from around the world and in recent years has been denounced as an example of racial disparity in the use of the death penalty.
Continue reading...Statues of Confederate generals Robert E Lee and Thomas 'Stonewall' Jackson were taken down in the city of Charlottesville, Virginia, on Saturday, nearly four years after white supremacist protests over plans to remove them led to clashes in which a woman was run down by a car and killed. A small crowd of onlookers cheered as the statue of Lee was hoisted away first, lifted by crane from its stone pedestal and taken away on a flat-bed truck.
Continue reading...One of two police officers accused of pepper-spraying and pointing their guns at a Black US army officer during a traffic stop has been fired, a Virginia town announced late on Sunday, hours after the governor called for an independent investigation.
In the December 2020 encounter, two officers are accused of drawing their guns, pointing them at army second lieutenant Caron Nazario and using a slang term to suggest he was facing execution.
Nazario, who is Black and Latino, was also pepper-sprayed and knocked to the ground by the officers, Joe Gutierrez and Daniel Crocker, according to the lawsuit he filed earlier this month against them. The two sides in the case dispute what happened but Crocker wrote in a report that he believed Nazario was “eluding police” and he considered it a “high-risk traffic stop”. Attorney Jonathan Arthur said Nazario was trying to stop in a well-lit area
Continue reading...Ban comes after a yearslong battle by Democrats in the state, which previously had US’s second-highest number of executions
Virginia has become the 23rd US state and the first in the south to abolish the death penalty, a dramatic shift for the commonwealth which previously had the nation’s second-highest number of executions.
Continue reading...Members of anti-government paramilitary groups discussed kidnapping Virginia governor Ralph Northam during a June meeting in Ohio, an FBI agent testified on Tuesday during a court hearing for a group of men accused of plotting to kidnap Michigan’s Democratic governor.
Related: How the domestic terror plot to kidnap Michigan's governor unravelled
Continue reading...El Shafee Elsheikh and Alexanda Kotey, held in detention for two years, transferred to America and charged with terrorism offences
Two British-born citizens alleged to have members of an Isis execution squad infamous for beheading hostages have been flown to the US to face trial after two years in detention.
Related: The jihadist 'Beatles': Britons who became the face of Isis cruelty
Continue reading...Engineers in Charlottesville, Virginia worked to remove a 900lb Confederate statue on Saturday, a moment of symbolic reckoning in the university town that was rocked by a white supremacist march in August 2017.
Related: Black Virginia state senator charged with 'injury' to Confederate monument
Continue reading...A Virginia Republican congressman who angered social conservatives in his district when he officiated a gay wedding has lost his party’s nomination.
Related: The Skywalker window: what Democrats must do to destroy Trump's Death Star
Continue reading...The US president urged supporters to 'liberate' three states led by Democratic governors on Friday, apparently encouraging protests against stay-at-home restrictions. 'These are people expressing their views,' Trump said during his daily White House coronavirus briefing.
Continue reading...Advocates and militia members gather in Virginia’s state capitol to protest potential gun control measures
Continue reading...At least 51 people have been injured in a pile-up on a major interstate in Virginia. Authorities do not yet know the cause of the crash, but fog and icy conditions were contributing factors, said Sgt Michelle Anaya of Virginia state police. No deaths were reported but it took emergency crews several hours to clear the road and reopen all lanes of traffic
Continue reading...Abigail Spanberger caught in delicate balance of advancing policy agenda and ensuring Trump is held accountable
At a middle school auditorium three hours south of the capital, where an intensifying impeachment inquiry into Donald Trump consumes all aspects of political life, the Virginia congresswoman Abigail Spanberger greeted a restive crowd of constituents with a PowerPoint presentation on the American system of government.
Continue reading...Virginia doctor Joel Smithers was convicted in May of more than 800 counts of illegally distributing opioids
A doctor who prosecutors said ran a medical practice in Virginia like an interstate drug distribution ring was sentenced on Wednesday to 40 years in prison for illegally prescribing opioids.
Dr Joel Smithers was sentenced in US district court in Abingdon. Judge James Jones sentenced Smithers to 40 years. He faced a mandatory minimum sentence of 20 years and a maximum of life.
Continue reading...Peter Vlaming lost his job after claiming his religion prohibited him from using male pronouns for a student who transitioned
A Virginia high school teacher who was fired for refusing to use a transgender student’s new pronouns has filed a lawsuit.
The Washington Post reported that Peter Vlaming filed suit on Monday against West Point Public Schools, a system outside Richmond.
Continue reading...Trump ally’s political influence may be on the wane as he calls for investigation at evangelical university
Since January 2016, when the head of Liberty University, Jerry Falwell Jr, endorsed Donald Trump for president, the influential evangelical university has been on a fast-track to the heart of American politics. Since being credited with helping Trump earn the loyal support of the Christian right, Falwell has become a regular presence at the White House.
Meanwhile, the university, founded in 1971 by his late father, the Rev Jerry Falwell Sr, has expanded exponentially. Under Falwell Jr’s leadership, the Lynchburg, Virginia, not-for-profit university’s assets have reportedly grown from $259m in 2007 to over $3bn and it has more than 100,000 students.
Continue reading...A federal judge imposed a life sentence on the self-described neo-Nazi who killed Heather Heyer by crashing his car into a crowd of counter-protesters in Charlottesville, Virginia, after a white supremacist rally, saying release would be “too great a risk”.
The 22-year-old neo-Nazi, James Fields of Maumee, Ohio, was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole. He had sought a lesser sentence, apologizing after the court viewed video of him plowing his car into a crowd after the 12 August 2017 Unite the Right rally, also injuring 19 people.
Continue reading...The self-avowed white supremacist who plowed his car into counter-protesters opposing a white nationalist rally in Virginia two years ago, killing one and injuring dozens, has asked a judge for mercy and a sentence shorter than life in prison.
Lawyers for James Alex Fields Jr, 22, said in a sentencing memo submitted in court documents on Friday the defendant should not spend his entire life in prison because of his age, a traumatic childhood and a history of mental illness.
Continue reading...Three people who were wounded in the Virginia Beach shooting remained in critical condition on Sunday, two days after a gunman opened fire in a municipal government building, killing 12.
Related: A mass shooting couldn’t happen in Virginia Beach … until it did
Continue reading...A day after the deadliest US mass shooting this year in which 12 people were shot dead at a government building, Elizabeth Warren was asked what she would do to confront an “overwhelming surge” in such events.
The Massachusetts senator said she wanted to reframe the question, then continued: “It’s not just mass shootings.” Every day in America, she said, gun violence occurs “on sidewalks and playgrounds and people’s backyards. It’s happening family by family across the country. And it doesn’t get the same headlines. And that is wrong.”
Continue reading...America was reeling on Saturday after 12 people were shot dead at a government building in Virginia Beach late on Friday afternoon. It was the deadliest mass shooting this year and prompted fresh demands for gun control reform.
Related: Virginia Beach shooting: 12 dead as city mourns 'the most devastating day'
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