Page 18 - Michael Westfall News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

Widow of murdered man talks about dealing with the Virginia parole board LYNCHBURG — When she’s doing anything, like driving around town or alone with her thoughts, Judy Smith thinks of the night she saw her husband die. They drove through a particular neighborhood in Lynchburg the day of his death and stopped at a drugstore. She thinks of it every time she drives through that neighborhood. Same goes for a gas station near Danville. Every time the family drives by, they think of stopping there with Clifford Smith on the last day of his life. In April 1975, at their apartment in Lync...

Parole Board Investigation, Marijuana Approved on "Veto Day" Virginia State Sen. Janet Howell, D-Fairfax, smiles after her remarks on a bill legalizing marijuana during the Senate reconvene session at the Science Museum of Virginia in Richmond, Va., Wednesday, April 7, 2021. (AP Photo/Steve Helber) Lawmakers took up major amendments to bills they passed earlier this year on “veto day,” a one-day special session held on Wednesday. They approved Gov. Ralph Northam’s amendment legalizing marijuana this year, and signed off on an independent investigation into the state’s government watch...

The Times-Dispatch obtains records and emails in the ongoing scandal involving the Virginia Parole Board. Democrats who control the General Assembly rejected a plan for a bipartisan special committee to investigate wrongdoing at the Virginia Parole Board, opting on Wednesday to fund a limited investigation into controversy involving one case. The limited investigation authorizes Attorney General Mark Herring, in consultation with Gov. Ralph Northam and other Democratic leaders, to choose a law firm to investigate how and why allegations of wrongdoing at the parole board were not included in o...

Scandal has befallen the Virginia Parole Board, and it’s finally coming to light.  Recent investigations into the Parole Board—which operates in secret and conceals records from the public—reveal board members violated its rules granting parole to convicted killers serving life sentences. Worse, the five-member board—all Democrats—decided this without informing victims' families and state prosecutors beforehand. Established in 1942, the agency decides how to “grant parole, to deny parole, to detain parole violators, and to revoke parole.” Unsurprisingly, they “serve at the pl...

By PATRICK WILSON AND MARK BOWES Richmond Times-Dispatch Republicans in the General Assembly slammed a proposal by Gov. Ralph Northam to hire an investigator to look into how a state watchdog agency investigated the Virginia Parole Board, calling it a “whitewash” because of its limited scope. Northam had said he wanted an independent investigation as a scandal unfolded involving the parole board violating state law and policy last year in processes used for release of certain convicted killers on parole, according to findings by the Office of the State Inspector General....