Va. Code Ann. § 18.2-26

Attempts to commit felonies other than Class 1 felony offenses; how punished

Applied in 11 court decisions — leading case 26 Va. App. 627 - Marshall v. Commonwealth (1998)

Most recently applied in United States v. Malek Lassiter (March 2024)

Code 1950, §§ 18.1-17, 18.1-18; 1960, c. 358; 1975, cc. 14, 15; 1994, c. 639; 2021, Sp

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citing decisions per year

Court decisions citing this, by year. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.

Except as provided in § 18.2-25, every person who attempts to commit an offense that is a felony shall be punished as follows:

(1) If the felony attempted is punishable by a maximum punishment of life imprisonment or a term of years in excess of twenty years, an attempt thereat shall be punishable as a Class 4 felony.

(2) If the felony attempted is punishable by a maximum punishment of twenty years' imprisonment, an attempt thereat shall be punishable as a Class 5 felony.

(3) If the felony attempted is punishable by a maximum punishment of less than twenty years' imprisonment, an attempt thereat shall be punishable as a Class 6 felony.

Official source: Virginia Law Portal (LIS). Reproduced from public-domain Virginia statutes; confirm against the official source for the current text. Not legal advice.