Truth in scheduling: Progress joins City v. Civilian Review Board fray A Daily Progress reporter was a topic of discussion during public comment at the May 6 City Council meeting, following Nolan Stout’s story earlier that day that police Chief RaShall Brackney’s calendar seemed to contradict claims that she was unavailable to meet with the […]
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‘Blot’ on justice: Nelson Mandela counsel believes Jens Soering’s innocence
The former UVA Echols Scholar convicted for the 1985 murders of his girlfriend’s parents has gotten another prominent supporter. Former Canadian minister of justice Irwin Cotler, who has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize and who was an attorney for political prisoners Nelson Mandela and Natan Sharansky, was in town March 5 and says […]
Wrongful delay: Virginia continues to victimize Robert Davis
It wasn’t enough that a wrongful conviction took nearly 13 years of Robert Davis’ life. Now, two years after he was released from prison and more than a year after then-Governor Terry McAuliffe granted him a full pardon, the General Assembly is stalled in a budget war that threatens to hose Davis’ state-mandated compensation. Delegate […]
Robert Davis’ mother killed in head-on collision
The mother of Robert Davis, who spent 13 years in prison for crimes he didn’t commit and who got an absolute pardon from the governor before Christmas, died in a collision with a tanker truck Thursday morning in Augusta County. Sandra M. Seal, 57, of Crimora, was traveling on U.S. 340 [...]
Innocent man: Governor grants full pardon for Robert Davis
Robert Davis faced the camera on Facebook live at 7pm December 16. Two hours earlier, at 4:48pm, Governor Terry McAuliffe signed an absolute pardon that proclaimed Davis’ innocence for the two murders that kept him in prison for 13 years. “I’m a free man,” said Davis on camera. “I’m [...]
Absolute pardon: Soering petitions another governor
During the 30 years he’s spent in prison, Jens Soering has maintained he had nothing to do with the brutal 1985 murders of Derek and Nancy Haysom, and that he only confessed to protect his girlfriend, Elizabeth Haysom, from the death penalty. Now Tim Kaine, the governor who agreed to send [...]
VP candidate and convicted murderer in spotlight again
Former UVA student Jens Soering has spent more than 30 years in prison while protesting his innocence. And Tim Kaine, shortly before he left the Governor’s Mansion in 2010, agreed to repatriate Soering to Germany, a move that was immediately overturned by his successor, Bob McDonnell. Now Kaine [...]
McAuliffe’s dilemma: Will he support McDonnell or Kaine in Jens Soering case?
Former UVA student/convicted murderer Jens Soering has been in prison for 29 years for the stabbing deaths of his girlfriend’s parents, Derek and Nancy Haysom, in 1985. During that time, his case has become an international cause célèbre, and a request to repatriate him to Germany is again [...]