John S. Edwards | |
---|---|
Member of the Virginia Senate from the 21st district | |
In office January 10, 1996 –January 10, 2024 | |
Preceded by | Brandon Bell |
Succeeded by | Dave Suetterlein (Redistricting) |
United States Attorney for the Western District of Virginia | |
In office January 29,1980 –January 1981 | |
Appointed by | Jimmy Carter |
Preceded by | E. Montgomery Tucker |
Succeeded by | John P. Alderman |
Personal details | |
Born | John Saul Edwards October 6,1943 Roanoke,Virginia,U.S. |
Political party | Democratic |
Spouse | Cathye Dabney |
Residence(s) | Roanoke,Virginia |
Alma mater | Princeton University (A.B.) University of Virginia (J.D.) |
Profession | Attorney |
Committees | Judiciary (Chair) Commerce and Labor Education and Health Finance and Appropriations Rules |
Military service | |
Allegiance | United States |
Branch/service | United States Marine Corps |
Years of service | 1971–1973 |
Rank | Captain |
Unit | Judge Advocate Division |
John Saul Edwards (born October 6,1943) is an American politician and lawyer. He served a member of the Senate of Virginia,representing the 21st district from 1996 to 2024.
Edwards graduated from Patrick Henry High School in 1962,where he was president of the Student Government Association,a state champion pole vaulter,and voted by his classmates as "most likely to succeed." In 1992,he was inducted into the school's Sports Hall of Fame.
He graduated cum laude with an A.B. in history from Princeton University in 1966 after completing a senior thesis titled "The Making of the Marshall Plan." [1] While a student at Princeton,Edwards was a pole vaulter on the track team.
He then attended the Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York on a Rockefeller Brothers Theological Fellowship (1966–67) but withdrew to attend law school.
Edwards graduated from the University of Virginia School of Law (J.D. 1970),where he was a member of the Law Review and elected to Omicron Delta Kappa and the Raven Society. He served as vice-chairman of the University Judiciary Committee and as assistant to Professor Antonin Scalia,later justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.
Edwards served in the United States Marine Corps from 1971 to 1973 as a Judge Advocate General,attaining the rank of captain. He volunteered for the Far East and served with the First Marine Aircraft Wing in Japan and Okinawa and later with the second Marine Division at Camp LeJeune,North Carolina.
In 1980,President Jimmy Carter appointed Edwards United States Attorney for the Western District of Virginia. During his term,Edwards's office achieved several milestones. The Roanoke Times &World News reported that he had one of the "perhaps most successful tenures of any federal prosecutor in recent years." He prosecuted the largest criminal case in the country at the time under the Mine Safety and Health Act of 1977,prosecuted the first criminal civil rights case in Virginia,initiated a national investigation into public corruption in the Mine Safety and Health Administration,prosecuted the largest bank robbery in Virginia history,and prosecuted organized crime. His office also received recognition from the Department of Justice for increasing by several times the collection of monies owed the federal government. He is the author of "Professional Responsibilities of the Federal Prosecutor," 17 U. Rich. L. Rev. 511 (1983).
Edwards is a partner in his law firm. His law practice includes a broad range of civil and criminal litigation in federal and state courts,including trials and appeals.
He has handled many appeals before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit,including:
He has handled many appeals before the Supreme Court of Virginia,including:
In November 1993,Edwards was appointed to fill a vacancy on Roanoke City Council. In the May 1994 general election,he was elected to a four-year term and Vice-Mayor of the City of Roanoke. Edwards was named Roanoker magazine's Roanoker of the Year in 1995.
In November 1995,Edwards unseated a Republican incumbent to win a seat in the Senate of Virginia,representing the 21st District. Edwards was re-elected in 1999,2003,2007,2011,and 2015 to the Virginia Senate. He currently serves on the following Senate committees:Courts of Justice,Privileges and Elections,and Transportation.
Edwards serves on the Virginia War Memorial Foundation Board,the Virginia Indigent Defense Commission,the Virginia Capital Representation Resource Center Board,and the Virginia Commission of At-Risk Youth &Children. He is Chairman of the Virginia Code Commission and serves on the board of governors of the Virginia Bar Association.
Legislation that Edwards has successfully sponsored include:
Awards and accolades that Edwards has received for his legislative service include:
Edwards ran for Attorney General of Virginia in 2001. He finished second to Donald McEachin in a four-way Democratic primary. [5]
Edwards has voted multiple times against Castle Doctrine bills. In January 2011,Edwards voted against Senate Bill 876 (Castle Doctrine) which would have allowed "a lawful occupant use of physical force,including deadly force,against an intruder in his dwelling who has committed an overt act against him,without civil liability." [6] In February 2011,Edwards was one of eight senators on the Senate Courts of Justice Committee who "passed by indefinitely" House Bill 1573,defeating the bill by an 8 to 4 margin. [7]
In February 2020,Edwards broke party ranks to shelve House Bill 961 (gun control) which would have prohibited the sale and transport of assault firearms,certain firearm magazines,silencers,and trigger activators. This effectively blocked the legislation championed by Gov. Ralph Northam. [8]
Edwards is the sponsor of a bill which would repeal Virginia's ban on parole,which dates back to 1995. [9]
Frank Hoover Easterbrook is an American lawyer and jurist who has served as a United States circuit judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit since 1985. He was the Seventh Circuit's chief judge from 2006 to 2013.
Student rights are those rights, such as civil, constitutional, contractual and consumer rights, which regulate student rights and freedoms and allow students to make use of their educational investment. These include such things as the right to free speech and association, to due process, equality, autonomy, safety and privacy, and accountability in contracts and advertising, which regulate the treatment of students by teachers and administrators. There is very little scholarship about student rights throughout the world. In general most countries have some kind of student rights enshrined in their laws and proceduralized by their court precedents. Some countries, like Romania, in the European Union, have comprehensive student bills of rights, which outline both rights and how they are to be proceduralized. Most countries, however, like the United States and Canada, do not have a cohesive bill of rights and students must use the courts to determine how rights precedents in one area apply in their own jurisdictions.
The LaRouche criminal trials in the mid-1980s stemmed from federal and state investigations into the activities of American political activist Lyndon LaRouche and members of his movement. They were charged with conspiring to commit fraud and soliciting loans they had no intention of repaying. LaRouche and his supporters disputed the charges, claiming the trials were politically motivated.
James Harvie Wilkinson III is an American jurist who serves as a United States circuit judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. His name has been raised at several junctures in the past as a possible nominee to the United States Supreme Court.
José Alberto Cabranes is an American lawyer who serves as a senior United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and a former presiding judge of the United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review ("FISCR"). Formerly a practicing lawyer, government official, and law teacher, he was the first Puerto Rican appointed to a federal judgeship in the continental United States (1979).
Dettmer v. Landon, 799 F.2d 929, is a court case in which the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit held that although Wicca is a religion, it was not a violation of the First Amendment to deny a prisoner access to ritual objects.
Jon Ormond Newman is a senior United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.
Roger Lee Gregory is an American lawyer who serves as a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.
Stephen Nathaniel Limbaugh Sr. is a former United States District Judge who held concurrent appointments to the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri and the United States District Court for the Western District of Missouri from 1983 until his retirement in 2008. He was appointed by president Ronald Reagan in the early 1980s after a distinguished career as a trial lawyer in Missouri. Like his father Rush Limbaugh Sr. before him, Limbaugh served as president of the Missouri Bar from 1982 to his appointment to the bench. His son, Stephen N. Limbaugh Jr., is a federal judge for the Eastern District of Missouri.
Robert David Sack is a senior United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.
George Steven Agee is a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit and a former justice of the Supreme Court of Virginia.
Jill Kendrick Holtzman Vogel is an American attorney and politician who served as the Virginia State Senator from the 27th district from 2008 to 2024. A Republican, her district was located in exurban and rural parts of Northern Virginia, and it included all of Clarke, Fauquier, and Frederick counties, Winchester city, as well as pieces of Culpeper, Loudoun, and Stafford counties.
Wilfred Feinberg was a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and previously was a United States District Judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York.
Gerard Edmund Lynch is an American lawyer who serves as a senior United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. He was confirmed to that seat on September 17, 2009, after previously having been appointed in 2000 by President Bill Clinton to serve on the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. Judge Lynch was the first appeals-court judge nominated by President Barack Obama to win confirmation from the United States Senate.
John Paul Jr. was Virginia lawyer and farmer who served in the Virginia Senate and United States House of Representatives, before becoming a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Western District of Virginia, and serving as Chief Judge during the Byrd Organization's Massive Resistance to the U.S. Supreme Court's decisions in Brown v. Board of Education.
Several statutes, mostly codified in Title 18 of the United States Code, provide for federal prosecution of public corruption in the United States. Federal prosecutions of public corruption under the Hobbs Act, the mail and wire fraud statutes, including the honest services fraud provision, the Travel Act, and the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) began in the 1970s. "Although none of these statutes was enacted in order to prosecute official corruption, each has been interpreted to provide a means to do so." The federal official bribery and gratuity statute, 18 U.S.C. § 201, the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) 15 U.S.C. § 78dd, and the federal program bribery statute, 18 U.S.C. § 666 directly address public corruption.
Earl Abbath Fitzpatrick was a Virginia lawyer and member of the Virginia General Assembly representing Roanoke between 1940 and 1959, first as a delegate and then as a state Senator. A lieutenant in the Byrd Organization, Fitzpatrick was active in the Massive Resistance to racial integration vowed by U.S. Senator Harry F. Byrd after the U.S. Supreme Court decisions in Brown v. Board of Education. He introduced much of the segregationist legislation and was vice-chairman of the Boatwright Committee which investigated the NAACP for litigating on behalf of civil rights, before being defeated in the 1959 Democratic primary.
Julius Ness "Jay" Richardson is an American judge and lawyer who serves as a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. He was formerly an Assistant United States Attorney for the District of South Carolina.
https://apps.senate.virginia.gov/Senator/memberpage.php?id=S45