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Prince William County Lawyers Up
To Protect Huge Data Center Project
The Prince William Board of County Supervisors is spending another $400,000 on litigation expenses intended to overcome opposition to the controversial PW Digital Gateway rezoning.
If it’s built, the Gateway would become the world’s largest data center corridor. It’s part of the county and Virginia’s bid to capitalize on the explosive growth of artificial intelligence.
First the project must withstand two lawsuits by local residents who are concerned about traffic, noise, higher rents and disruption of their lifestyles that they say will accompany construction and operation of 37 data centers.
The lawsuits, Katy Burke et al v. Board of County Supervisors, and Oak Valley Homeowners Association, Inc, et al v. Prince William County Board of Supervisors, are scheduled to be heard jointly before the Virginia Court of Appeals the week of Feb. 23. The plaintiffs argue that the lack of notice and public input before the projects won legislative approval violate state laws on due process.
They won preliminary success in their lawsuits.
The Board of County Supervisors approved the project in December 2023 but a judge ordered it halted. She said the county failed to adequately advertise a public hearing to elicit community input before the vote of approval.
In addition, 17 circuit court cases challenge real estate assessments of the land that would be rezoned for the project.
The PW Digital Gateway would include more than 22 million square feet of data centers across 2,100 acres in Prince William County. Principal developers are Compass Datacenters and QTS.
Additional money for the county’s litigation is being transferred from the real estate assessment reserve to the county attorney’s office. The county is spending about $800,000 on outside counsel, much of it going to the Fredericksburg-based firm Sands Anderson PC.
For more information, contact The Legal Forum (www.legal-forum.net) at email: tramstack@gmail.com or phone: 202-479-7240.
U.S. Senate Tries Again to Sunset
Liability Immunity of Social Media
A new bill pending in the Senate would end a nearly 30-year-old provision of federal law that helped shape the modern internet.
Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996 shields online platforms from liability for most content posted by their users, while also granting companies broad latitude to moderate material they consider objectionable.
The tech industry says social media, search engines and online marketplaces could not exist in their current form without Section 230.
Members of the Senate Judiciary Committee who introduced the Sunset Section 230 Act last month month say internet companies have abused the law by using the rights it grants them to censor conservative political material and allowing information on their platforms that is dangerous to children.
Their bipartisan bill would allow persons aggrieved by internet content to sue the platforms.
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Latest News
Performers Pull Out of Kennedy Center
After Trump’s Name Was Added to It
A jazz ensemble last week canceled its New Year’s Eve performance at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., in an apparent protest of the center’s renaming that added President Donald Trump’s name.
The Cookers did not mention Trump in their published explanation but left little doubt about their reasoning.
“Jazz was born from struggle and from a relentless insistence on freedom: freedom of thought, of expression, and of the full human voice,” their statement said.
About the same time, the New York-based Doug Varone and Dancers group canceled their performance scheduled for April.
Although the dance group expects to lose $40,000 from the cancellation, its leader said in a statement that the decision was “financially devastating but morally exhilarating.”
Power the Civil Rights Work of Our Time
Each day members of our community are experiencing wage theft, the effects of gentrification, discriminatory policing, collateral consequences, marginalization in schools, and barriers to public accommodations.
We fight alongside people facing the effects of gentrification like Amira Moore. Our work empowers the people and communities who need it most, “We can do more than we think. There’s a path to equity, we just have to step to it.” –Ms. Moore
For more than 50 years, the Washington Lawyers’ Committee has been on the frontlines of the fight for civil rights in our community. We deploy the best legal talent, we tackle the tough cases, we fight, and we win.
Our work is as important today as it has ever been. Through your support, you can play a role in creating justice for thousands of marginalized members of our community. Together, we will dismantle injustice and pursue lasting change.
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Letters to the Editor
D.C. in Brief
U.S. Attorney Pirro Uses Murder Case
To Argue for Tough Juvenile Prosecutions
A 16-year-old accused murderer is due in D.C. Superior Court next week for a preliminary hearing in a case that the U.S. attorney is using to justify her crackdown on juvenile crime.
Keyonte Johnson is charged as an adult with premeditated murder while armed after allegedly shooting and killing 20-year-old Washington, D.C., resident Roy Bennett, Jr., on the evening of December 5, 2025.
Johnson is being held without bond after a first appearance last month.
“This is yet another example of the out-of-control underage crime plaguing the district,” said U.S. Attorney Jeanine Ferris Pirro.
She added that “it is time to put an end to this predictable violence and time to lower the age of accountability so that I can start prosecuting these young criminals before they commit murder.”
Prosecutors said in a court filing that the victim was in a Union Market apartment that was being used for a recording studio.
Johnson was one of several other people present, the court filing says. He was seated on a sofa behind the victim.
As the victim was standing at a microphone, Johnson allegedly shot him seven times. Two bullets struck him in the head and two in the chest.
Johnson allegedly tried to intimidate a potential witness with a death threat as he fled the scene, according to prosecutors. He was arrested at a Maryland home shortly afterward. Police said they found a gun, ammunition and the clothing Johnson was reportedly wearing during the shooting.
Pirro has made public calls for tougher enforcement of laws against juveniles. She has suggested prosecuting violent crimes by 14- to 17-year-olds in adult court rather than in family or juvenile court.
Alleged D.C. Pipe Bomber
Denied Pre-Trial Release
Accused Washington, D.C. pipe bomber Brian Cole Jr. will remain in jail after a federal judge ruled he created too much danger for pre-trial release.
He faces two felonies after being charged in the attempted 2021 bombings outside the headquarters of the Republican and Democratic National Committees.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Matthew Sharbaugh’s ruling last week said "the government carried its ultimate burden to demonstrate that there are no conditions of release the Court could impose to reasonably assure the safety of the community."
Cole’s attorneys argued that his autism spectrum diagnosis and obsessive-compulsive disorder should demonstrate that a better alternative is pre-trial release on bond or home detention.
Prosecutors said the seriousness of the federal explosives charges show Cole is an ongoing danger to society. He is charged with transporting an explosive device in interstate commerce and attempted malicious destruction by means of fire and explosive materials. He faces a likelihood of decades in prison if he is convicted.
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Legal Briefs
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That way, DC residents like Keith King (pictured above) can get the legal representation they need to win their cases. As Mr. King put it, if it wasn’t for his Legal Aid lawyer, “I would have been homeless again.”
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