The Virginia General Assembly’s recent Special Session intended to address Criminal Justice issues in the Commonwealth. In doing do, legislators looked a variety of approaches, and found some solutions that make genuine progress, or are at a minimum, good faith...
The Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution prohibits law enforcement from conducting unreasonable searches and seizures. Warrantless searches are per seunreasonable under the Fourth Amendment, subject only to a few exceptions. Mincey v. Arizona, 437 U.S. 385,...
Just last month in Mason v. Commonwealth of Virginia, 2016 WL 2586178, the Supreme Court of Virginia upheld a Terry stop based solely on the officer’s observation of an opaque 3 by 5 parking pass hanging from the rearview mirror of the car. The case is quite...
