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Virginia State Police Begins Traffic Enforcement Campaign

The VSP begins it’s summer campaign of extra highway safety enforcement.

According do this article, “Operation Land, Speed, and Air” will focus extra police patrols on I-81 and I-95, looking for drunk drivers, speeders, and reckless drivers.

Does any of this make the road of Virginia safer? Maybe. But that is the nature of more police… there are always people you can pull over for speeding and other offenses. It is easy enough to generate bigger numbers of traffic citations if that’s the goal.

But what this is really about is that they get extra federal funding for these campaigns, as it clearly says in the article:  “Funding for the enforcement initiative is provided through federal highway safety monies”
Which is all well and good, but it is silly to claim that it is about anything else: We have federal money to pay more officers, so we will do stuff. Fair enough.

And they kind of give away the point when they talk about what they will do with the extra funds generated by fines and fees. And the fees are high, especially for the criminal charge of reckless driving, which you can get by merely going 20mph over the limit, or 80mph anywhere. It is widely accepted that Virginia has the the most stringent reckless driving laws in the nation. It is painfully easy to get cited for this misdemeanor offense.

Plus, if the only concern was public safety, why only now? ““Too many lives are put at risk because of irresponsible driving behavior.” Clearly that is not only true during the summer.
But yes, it is possible that you are more likely to be stopped during the summer if there really is an extra police presence. 
Anyway, be careful out there and drive safely. As always!

Virginia Prison Sentences Nearly Doubled

We’ve all heard the phrase “tough on crime,” and many people are aware that the United States is the most incarcerated nation in the world. But a new indication of our love of imprisonment comes in the form of sentence length. The Pew Center on the States released a report this week detailing how prison sentences have changed over the past few decades. What they found is dramatic.

Not only are people going to prison now for offenses they may have only gotten probation for in the past, but the sentences they are serving are far longer. [Read more…]

Same Burglary Case, Dramatically Different Sentences

The Daily Press ran a brief snippet of a story online this week, highlighting how two defendants in the same case, facing many of the same charges, can walk away with vastly different outcomes.

The case involved a home invasion. The two defendants were 20-year old Samual Goodwin Sanchez and 21 –year old Robert King Via, Jr. While the details of the case weren’t published, both men were charged with forcing themselves into a home and holding four people at gunpoint before making off with cash.

Via was found guilty at trial of conspiracy, armed burglary, robbery, firearms charges, and four counts of abduction. Sanchez, on the other hand, pled guilty in a plea agreement to charges of robbery, abduction, and firearms charges.

Sanchez was sentenced to 13 years in prison. Via, on the other hand, will face sentencing in a few months. But, the jury who convicted him has recommended a sentence of 128 years plus one day for his role in the crimes.

The Daily Press points out that judges rarely deviate much from sentencing recommendations from a jury, despite the fact that these recommendations are made by people who aren’t educated in the law and don’t have access to the state sentencing guidelines, “designed to help equalize sentences around the state.”

In addition to not having access to these important guidelines, jurors aren’t given any guidance on whether or not the sentences for each charge would be served consecutively or concurrently, a matter that could dramatically change the total number of years served.

There is a very good chance that Via will face a sentence that is numerous times longer than his codefendant’s. Part of that is because the judge will likely stick close to the jury’s recommendations and because Via chose to go to trial rather than admit fault in a plea agreement.

The vast majority of criminal cases, around some 97%, are resolved by plea agreement. A plea agreement is where you, the defendant, agree to plead guilty to at least some of the charges against you in exchange for a more lenient sentence or even reduced charges. This is what happened in Sanchez’s situation and no doubt at least part of the reason he is looking at a far lighter sentence.

If you are facing criminal charges and unsure of the sentence you face or the likelihood of a beneficial plea agreement, contact us today.

Is 10mph Over A "Safe" Speeding Limit?

Hampton Roads has an interesting analysis in the Pilot Online about the number of speeding tickets issued for travelling at rates 10mph over the limit or less.

It is widely believed that police are unlikely to pull you over for speeding if you are only going 10mph over the limit, and their analysis appears to bear that out. According to their research, only three tenths of 1 percent of tickets issues where for less than that speeding threshold.

However, that doesn’t mean it isn’t possible. You are probably most likely to get tagged with low grade speeding in school zones with lots of kids around, which makes sense.

Virginia is known for some of the toughest speeding laws in the nation, with criminal charges for driving 20mph over the limit, or over 80mph, known as “reckless by speed“. Reckless driving in Virginia is the same seriousness as a drunk driving charge – a Class 1 Misdemeanor offense.

But it is comforting to know that you are very unlikely to get a speeding citation for under 10mph over the limit. The practical reason for this isn’t so much that the police are just willing to give you a pass. It’s more likely if they want to pull over speeders, it frankly isn’t hard to find people travelling faster than that, so they don’t waste their time with the very minor infractions in most cases.
And it’s certainly true that speedier drivers, especially chronic ones, are a bigger threat to public safely, and more worth the time and effort for an officer to stop them and issue a traffic ticket.

But Virginia is probably the last place that you want to push the limit much beyond that, given the significant legal problems you face when you up the ante.

Jail Time for Reckless Driving

Virginia is know for the toughest reckless driving penalties in the country, and Virginia judges certainly do issue jail sentences for offenses that would probably just be traffic citations in other states.

But that doesn’t mean some driving isn’t truly reckless, and may well warrant criminal charges and penalties, as one New Jersey man recently found out.
According to Delmarvanow.com he was sentenced to 10 days in jail for driving 110 mph on the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel at 2am, with his wife and small child in the car.
The 17 mile long Chesapeake Bay bridge and tunnel is very narrow, and crosses a large opening of the Chesapeake Bay, between Maryland and Virginia. It can be frightening to drive on at posted speed limits, especially when it is windy.
Doing a buck ten on this narrow bridge, at 2am, sounds terrifying, and extremely dangerous. I think it is reasonable to assume that criminal penalties, and even jail time could be the result, even under New Jersey reckless driving laws, which are nowhere near as strict as Virginia.
I think most people who’ve driven on this bridge before would have to agree that driving that fast there sounds crazy.