A proposal under consideration by the Virginia Supreme Court to keep juries anonymous in all criminal trials has been withdrawn. A revised proposal to limit jury anonymity to cases where it is warranted has been posted on the high court’s Web site. Kent Willis, executive director of the ACLU of Virginia, said yesterday that the organization is pleased by the development.

GATE CITY—Civil liberties lawyers are standing behind the free speech rights of students in southwest Virginia who plan to protest the ACLU. The American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia is asking Gate City High School officials to allow students to wear T-shirts to tonight’s football game with a message that reads: “I still pray ... In Jesus’ name.“

What’s next? Perhaps jurors will be hidden behind a one-way mirror. Maybe they’ll hear evidence via closed-circuit television or an online stream and render their verdicts by e-mail. An advisory committee to the Virginia Supreme Court has proposed making jurors anonymous in all criminal jury trials. The jurors would be referred to by numbers instead of names.

Just when Gloucester County taxpayers thought it was safe to petition their elected officials without penalty, it turned out the meter was still running. Two law firms recently billed the county an additional $42,146 in legal expenses for their defense of four supervisors whom citizens unsuccessfully tried to remove from office last year.

Stop the fight. The commonwealth of Virginia should end this foolishness and concede the point to Hanover County activist B.J. Ostergren. A federal judge ruled Tuesday that Ostergren may resume posting the Social Security numbers of Virginia legislators, court clerks and other officials on her Web site, as part of her protest that government sites make such numbers publicly available.

The Virginia branch of the American Civil Liberties Union is offering to help a woman arrested during a public art performance in downtown Roanoke.

Ihave this theory about humanity’s demise at the hands of technology. The end doesn’t come with a Terminator time-traveling to assassinate the leader of the human resistance. Why would machines need to purge humanity? We’re doing a fine job of that ourselves. We surf the Internet instead of interacting. We text instead of phoning. We chat online rather than talking face to face.

One thing that won’t have to come off at the strip club Velvet is the antiballpark sign on the building’s facade. Richmond officials have dropped for now their claim that the large, yellow banner is illegal because it exceeds size limits outlined in the city’s zoning ordinance. In an April 22 letter to Shockoe Bottom club owner Sam Moore, Zoning Administrator William C. Davidson said the city now agrees the sign is exempt as a political campaign sign because it cites bills that were considered by the General Assembly this year.

Richmond zoning inspectors will return to Club Velvet to consider whether a giant yellow banner opposing a ballpark for Shockoe Bottom is exempt from city sign regulations. Strip-club owner Samuel J.T. Moore III appeared before the Board of Zoning Appeals yesterday to challenge a ruling that his estimated 300-square-foot sign is illegal because it exceeds size limits.

To be sure, a KKK member offering a prayer for the advancement of whites only would be repugnant almost beyond belief. You noted that the Nebraska Supreme Court upheld the firing of a state trooper who belonged to an arguably related organization. Presumably, the trooper challenged his firing on the rights of “assembly” and “expression” guaranteed in the First Amendment. He did not offer a public prayer extolling white supremacy, as your hypothetical posited.

Can a Virginia inmate call prison staff names in writing and get away with it? A federal appeals court will hear arguments next week in a case triggered by a Jan. 10, 2004, letter from a prisoner who complained of “cold, callus, cruel, evil, uncaring, unmercyful, inhumane officials you have left in charge as wardens.“ Johnny Huff, 57, then an inmate at the Haynesville Correctional Center, wrote to Gene Johnson, director of the Virginia Department of Corrections, alleging that old and infirm inmates were made to stand outside in inclement weather to obtain medications.

The ACLU of Virginia begs to differ with Richmond leaders who want to ban panhandlers on city sidewalks and curbs from approaching vehicles for handouts. Richmond has had an ordinance since 1977 that prohibits soliciting from median strips, but a proposal being considered today by Richmond City Council’s public safety committee would extend that ban to all areas in a street’s right of way. People convicted of the misdemeanor offense could be fined $250.

Leigh Purdum refused to cover her John McCain T-shirt Nov. 4 at the Brightwood precinct in Madison County. On Dec. 1, warrant in hand, she turned herself in for arrest. The American Civil Liberties Union believes Purdum is the only person arrested as a result of a Virginia State Board of Elections ruling in October that banned political clothing at polling locations.

Three Virginia organizations today filed a lawsuit in federal court in Richmond seeking to overturn the Election Day ban on political attire and campaign paraphernalia at the polls. The ACLU of Virginia, the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Enterprise and the Rutherford Institute said the policy of the State Board of Elections violates free speech rights in the U.S. Constitution.