The Virginia Supreme Court recently made a wise decision to step back from a proposal to make all criminal-trial juries anonymous. The proposal was a misguided case of judicial activism. Last year the General Assembly passed a law permitting anonymous juries if a judge found good cause for keeping jurors’ identities secret in certain circumstances. The legislature instructed the Supreme Court to promulgate rules for putting the law into effect.

Parents have a broad duty to assure the welfare of a juvenile guest, even when harm comes to that guest from a third party outside the home. In a split decision yesterday, the state Supreme Court reinstated and sent back to Henrico County Circuit Court a wrongful-death case in which a 14-year-old guest died in a car crash. A Henrico judge had ruled that the duty of the parents overseeing the guest did not extend to the circumstances alleged in the suit.

A proposal under consideration by the Virginia Supreme Court to keep juries anonymous in all criminal trials has been withdrawn.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.

The Virginia Supreme Court says judges cannot require a school board to allow a violent sex offender to enter school property. The justices unanimously ruled yesterday that the Virginia Constitution gives school boards control over school buildings and grounds. The court said a Charlottesville judge who lifted the ban for one sex offender overstepped his authority when he spelled out the type of school events the man would be allowed to attend.

The Virginia Supreme Court has ordered a new sentencing for a man on death row for the 1988 slayings of two college sweethearts.

The deadline for public comment on a proposal to keep jurors anonymous in Virginia criminal trials passed yesterday with apparently few opinions offered. Kent Sinclair, a professor at the University of Virginia School of Law and chairman of the advisory committee, said yesterday that he was aware of only three or four comments on the anonymity proposal submitted by the deadline.

Prosecutors yesterday lost a bid to restore a death sentence in a long-running case that led the U.S. Supreme Court to bar the execution of mentally retarded people. In a 5-2 decision, the justices of the Virginia Supreme Court disagreed with prosecutors’ contention that a York County judge lacked the authority to set aside Daryl Renard Atkins’ death sentence and impose life in prison after finding there had been a serious trial error.

A man on death row in two states is entitled to a new sentencing in Virginia because the jury that convicted him of the 1988 slayings of two college sweethearts was given unconstitutional verdict forms, the inmate’s lawyer argued in court yesterday. Attorney Michael A. Siem told the Virginia Supreme Court that the forms failed to provide an option for the jury to sentence Alfredo R. Prieto to life without parole even if it found he was eligible for the death penalty because the crimes were vile or because Prieto would pose a danger to the public.

An environmental group lost a bid in the Virginia Supreme Court to stop a $1.8 billion coal-burning power plant in Wise County. In a unanimous ruling yesterday, the justices held that requiring the 585-megawatt plant to be built in the Southwest Virginia coal fields and to be able to burn Virginia coal did not violate the U.S. Constitution’s commerce clause.

A divided federal appeals court panel has upheld the death sentence imposed on Paul Warner Powell, sent to death row a second time with the help of a letter he wrote to the prosecutor. Powell, 31, was first sentenced to death in 2000 for the 1999 slaying of Stacey Reed, 16, of Manassas. He also stabbed and raped her 14-year-old sister, Kristie, who survived. He was sentenced to death for the murder of Stacey during the commission of the rape of Kristie.

Crowded into a windowless conference room at the John Marshall Courts Building, state Supreme Court Chief Justice Leroy Hassell and the eight judges of the Richmond Circuit Court quarreled over a proposal to scrap a Holy City tradition: separate civil and criminal judgeships. Hassell, intent on leveling the workload of the busy court, wanted the practice dropped immediately. Most of the judges favored a phase-in.

A wealthy Fairfax County collector can keep a rare copy of the Declaration of Independence that was claimed by the small Maine town where it was sent in 1776. Yesterday a unanimous Supreme Court of Virginia upheld a lower court ruling that Internet pioneer Richard L. Adams Jr., who bought the document for $475,000 in 2001, had a stronger claim to ownership than did the town of Wiscasset.

A wealthy Fairfax County collector can keep a rare copy of the Declaration of Independence claimed by the small Maine town where it was sent in 1776, the Supreme Court of Virginia ruled this morning.

An environmental group took its fight against a $1.8 billion coal-burning power plant in Wise County before the justices of the Supreme Court of Virginia this morning.

A long-running case that reshaped the death penalty in the U.S. and outlived the judge will be argued before the Virginia Supreme Court today. More than a decade after Daryl Renard Atkins left a young airman riddled with bullets at a dark, rural crossroads in York County, the killer’s fate is still uncertain.