South Carolina Lawyers Weekly

A federal appeals court has denied qualified immunity for a police officer who shot and killed a citizen’s dog when the dog allegedly posed no threat. The Jan. 22 decision by the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals revives a ...

Tagged with: 4th Circuit

  A promising new technology that can unlock the identity of long-sought criminal suspects and free the wrongly convicted is raising questions about whether it might become too intrusive. In Virginia, a judge recently considered whether creation of a DNA ...

Tagged with: DNA

  A divided federal appeals panel has overturned the convictions of three people accused of distributing synthetic drugs because the jury was never asked if the charges were brought in the right locality. A two-judge majority of a panel of ...

Tagged with: Venue

A Virginia judge has blocked a lawsuit filed by the CEO of a now-defunct and discredited lab company that accused a big national law firm—which had announced only a day earlier that it would begin winding down its own operations—of ...

Tagged with: malpractice

By Peter Vieth A woman’s failure to read the label on a bottle of pills was not contributory negligence as a matter of law, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals court said in the case of a pharmacy that mailed ...

Tagged with: pills

Three days after a gunman shot and killed 12 people at the sprawling Virginia Beach, Virginia government complex, lawyers were back in court nearby on June 3 arguing to a jury over the value of a personal injury claim. The ...

Allowing a young visitor to Colonial Williamsburg to eat his homemade meal with classmates in a historic tavern might be a necessary accommodation to his special dietary needs, a panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled last ...

A lawyer charged with helping his wife plunder money from the campaign chest of a Virginia state senator and two other organizations cannot shield his two homes from possible forfeiture, a federal appeals court ruled last month. The 4th U.S. ...

Tagged with: Forfeiture

Divorce lawyers, beware. Tech-savvy clients may be arriving at your office bringing a host of ethical—and even criminal—problems wrapped up with their domestic cases. They may be using cell phone software to illegally gather information, or they themselves may be ...

Tagged with: Divorce Family Law

A South Carolina case that was once cited as evidence of Mexican drug cartels fueling U.S. drug trafficking is now provoking conflicting views among appellate judges about racial factors involved in police traffic stops.   Three federal appeals court judges ...

Tagged with: 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Traffic Stop