Circuit Court Judge Margaret Poles Spencer handed down the sentence against former Police Sgt. Alvin Trevor Pearson in the shooting death of 43-year-old Henry K. “Hank” Berry III on Dec. 27, 2019.

Concerned about Lonnie Wilfork's health and desperate to learn more, his mother and wife have tried in vain to get information about his condition and whereabouts since they were informed Thanksgiving Day he was undergoing emergency surgery at Riverside Regional Medical Center. Wilfork was in custody at the Newport News City Jail at the time on low-level charges.

The Virginia State Crime Commission voted this week to recommend several changes in law stemming from the state’s move to marijuana legalization two years ago. But three Senate Democrats on the commission derailed several other proposals, including a bid to reinstate the authority of police in certain investigations to search vehicles based only on the odor of marijuana.

Because Tommy Jason Strayhorn's killing was in 2016, James Curtis Miles is being sentenced under Virginia’s old sentencing system — in which jurors recommend a sentence before a judge weighs in.

If he wins confirmation by the full Senate in the coming weeks, Jamar K. Walker would become the first openly gay federal district judge in Virginia.

Lawrence Fenner, who was pulled out of his car by police and Tased after a June traffic stop, plans to sue the Newport News Police Department for excessive force.

One thing under consideration: Purchasing roadside screening devices in which officers and sheriff’s deputies can have a driver swab his or her cheek to gather saliva to detect marijuana and other drugs.

Meet Stanley Sacks, a 100-year-old Norfolk attorney who’s practiced law since 1948. He’s the longest-serving attorney in the Old Dominion, and possibly the United States, the Virginia State Bar says.

The high court denied the bid by Antonio Futrell, whose lawyers asserted in June that a Hampton detective should have gotten a warrant when he opened Futrell’s phone during an investigation into a 2018 shootout.