In any civil action, the exercise by a party of any constitutional protection shall not be used against him, except that in any civil proceeding for spousal support, custody, or visitation under Title 16.1 or any civil action for divorce or separate maintenance under Title 20 filed on or after July 1, 2020, if a party or witness refuses to answer a question about conduct described in subdivision A (1) of § 20-91 or in § 18.2-365 on the ground that the testimony might be self-incriminating, the trier of fact may draw an adverse inference from such refusal.
Va. Code Ann. § 8.01-223.1
Use of constitutional rights
Applied in 10 court decisions — leading case 40 Va. App. 685 - Watts v. Watts (2003)
Most recently applied in Finecy v. Finecy (September 2015)
1985, c. 192; 2020, c. 1062.
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.