No court shall, without a jury, for any such contempt as is mentioned in the first class embraced in § 18.2-456, impose a fine exceeding $250 or imprison more than ten days; but in any such case the court may, without an indictment, information or any formal pleading, impanel a jury to ascertain the fine or imprisonment proper to be inflicted and may give judgment according to the verdict.
Va. Code Ann. § 18.2-457
Fine and imprisonment by court limited unless jury impaneled
Applied in 3 court decisions — leading case 51 Va. App. 679 - Scialdone v. Commonwealth (2008)
Most recently applied in 51 Va. App. 679 - Scialdone v. Commonwealth (April 2008)
Code 1950, § 18.1-295; 1960, c. 358; 1975, cc. 14, 15; 1999, c. 626.
How often courts cite this section
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.
Official source: Virginia Law Portal (LIS). Reproduced from public-domain Virginia statutes; confirm against the official source for the current text. Not legal advice.