Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, September 25, 1993 TAG: 9309250233
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
VIRGINIA BEACH - A majority of Regent University's law professors have filed a complaint about job security with the American Bar Association.
The complaint, filed by eight of the law school's 14 full-time professors, is the latest sign of turmoil at the school whose founder and chancellor is religious broadcaster Pat Robertson. The complaint apparently involves whether Robertson and the school's board of trustees can fire professors without cause.
Meantime, the law school appointed a new dean this week, J. Nelson Happy, in a move that apparently surprised students and some faculty.
Happy, a Newport News lawyer and businessman, faced a criminal fraud charge in 1988 related to a Kansas City bank he headed that went insolvent. He was cleared of the charge of conspiring to make false statements to obtain a $300,000 loan.
Happy replaced Herbert Titus, the school's founding dean. Titus left in July rather than accept an endowed professorship.
Some students have complained that Titus was pushed aside for a dean less focused on scripture to enhance the school's prospect of obtaining full ABA accreditation.
- Associated Press
UVa study: Alternative to prison may be better
CHARLOTTESVILLE - While locking up more criminals for longer prison sentences appears to have little effect on crime, other options for dealing with criminals may work no better, a University of Virginia study concluded.
"It doesn't seem to have worked," said William H. Lucy, a professor of urban and environmental planning who wrote a study titled, "Have Virginia's Corrections Policies Been Cost Effective?"
He urged Gov. Douglas Wilder to appoint a commission to report on the cost and effectiveness of policy alternatives for corrections before the state budget for the 1994-96 biennium is submitted.
From 1984 to 1991, Virginia's crime rate increased 3.1 percent a year, compared with the national average of 2.5 percent, Maryland's average of 2.7 percent, North Carolina's 6.5 percent and West Virginia's 2 percent.
During that same period, Virginia's violent-crime rate rose at a rate of about 4 percent a year and its incarceration rate was about 7 percent a year, Lucy's study said. - Associated Press
High school athlete seeks retrial by jury
HAMPTON - The attorney for two-sport high school athlete Allen Iverson has asked for a retrial by jury for his client.
James Ellenson, Iverson's attorney, contends the 18-year-old former football and basketball star at Bethel High School wasn't properly explained his right to a jury trial.
Iverson was tried by a judge who found him guilty of three felony counts of maiming by mob. He was sentenced Sept. 8 to five years in prison and is being held at the Newport News City Farm pending an appeal of the case.
The new trial motion was filed Thursday in Circuit Court.
Iverson, a highly sought college basketball recruit, was one of three people convicted of roles in a Valentine's Day chair-throwing brawl at a bowling alley. Three people were injured in the fracas.
The incident had racial overtones, since the fight involved separate groups of black and white bowlers. No whites were charged. Prosecutors said the whites were defending themselves from attack by blacks. - Associated Press
by CNB