Virginia Lawyers Weekly

ROANOKE—The 20-year effort to get an official set of evidence rules in Virginia is still under review at the Supreme Court of Virginia, and one proponent is concerned that opposition has arisen.

Richmond lawyer John M. Oakey Jr., who has shepherded the project for two decades, said he is “discouraged” that Chief Justice Leroy Rountree Hassell Sr. may have decided against the recommendation of the Judicial Council of Virginia to adopt a code of evidence.

Oakey gave a more upbeat report at the 2008 Boyd Graves Conference in October. At that meeting, he reported that the court was seeking input from Virginia law faculty members about the proposed evidence rules.

“Since then, I have heard in a roundabout way that the chief has decided that he is not interested in moving forward with the thing at all,” Oakey told participants at a Roanoke bench-bar meeting on Feb. 27.

Oakey said that he was not sure if Hassell intended only to pass the matter by for this year, or whether there was an overall objection to a code of evidence. “It appears to me that the Supreme Court is not moving forward at this time,” he said.

Officials at the court were not forthcoming.

Asked if the court has a schedule for acting on the recommendation, court public relations director Katya N. Herndon responded, “My understanding is that the Supreme Court is still studying the proposed rules.”

The delay is not unexpected, despite the eagerness of those who toiled to create what’s now an unofficial published set of Virginia evidence guidelines. When the guidelines were presented to the court a year ago with the Judicial Council’s recommendation, Hassell told the council he expected the court would take some time before acting on the proposed rules.

Oakey believes that the court is concerned that official evidence rules promulgated by the court would be subject to “tinkering” by the General Assembly, since adoption would require legislative action to replace numerous evidence statutes now written into the state code. Oakey also reports concern that a Code of Evidence should be a statement of existing law, not an attempt at improvement of the law.

Massachusetts and Virginia are the only two states without official codes of evidence.

Close this Window Bookmark and Share This Page

Save to Browser Favorites / Bookmarks

Print RSS Feed Ask backflip blinklist BlogBookmark Bloglines BlogMarks Blogsvine BuddyMarks BUMPzee! CiteULike co.mments

Connotea del.icio.us Digg diigo DotNetKicks DropJack dzone Facebook Fark Faves Feed Me Links Friendsite folkd.com

Furl Google Hugg Jeqq Kaboodle kirtsy linkaGoGo LinksMarker Ma.gnolia Mister Wong Mixx MySpace MyWeb

Netvouz Newsvine oneview OnlyWire PlugIM Propeller Reddit Rojo Segnalo Shoutwire Simpy Slashdot Sphere

Sphinn Spurl Squidoo StumbleUpon Technorati ThisNext Twitter Webride Windows Live Yahoo!

Email This to a Friend

Copy HTML: 

 If you like this then please subscribe to the RSS Feed.

More »