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Va. Code Ann. § 19.2-271

Certain judicial officers incompetent to testify under certain circumstances; exceptions (Supreme Court Rule 2:605 derived from this section)

Applied in 6 court decisions — leading case In Re Wilkins (1994)

Most recently applied in 154 F. Supp. 3d 322 - Wootten v. Commonwealth of Virginia (January 2016)

Code 1950, §§ 19.1-267, 19.1-268; 1960, c. 366; 1975, c. 495; 1976, c. 269; 1989, c. 738; 1990, c. 602; 2015, c. 635.

How often courts cite this section

199120002010201610
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.

No judge shall be competent to testify in any criminal or civil proceeding as to any matter which came before him in the course of his official duties.

Except as otherwise provided in this section, no clerk of any court, magistrate, or other person having the power to issue warrants, shall be competent to testify in any criminal or civil proceeding as to any matter which came before him in the course of his official duties. Such person shall be competent to testify in any criminal proceeding wherein the defendant is charged with perjury or pursuant to the provisions of § 18.2-460 or in any proceeding authorized pursuant to § 19.2-353.3. Notwithstanding any other provision of this section, any judge, clerk of any court, magistrate, or other person having the power to issue warrants, who is the victim of a crime, shall not be incompetent solely because of his office to testify in any criminal or civil proceeding arising out of the crime.

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