Virginia statute
Va. Code Ann. § 19.2-188.3 — Admissibility of affidavits by government officials regarding a search of government records (Subdivision (10)(b) of Supreme Court Rule 2:803 derived from this section)
Current through 2026 Regular Session
Part of Chapter 12: Preliminary Hearing, Code of Virginia.
Full text of Va. Code Ann. § 19.2-188.3
Statutory text current through the 2026 Regular Session. This publication reproduces the text of the Code of Virginia from the official Virginia Law Portal API published by the Virginia General Assembly's Division of Legislative Automated Systems; it is not the official Code of Virginia.
In any hearing or trial, an affidavit signed by a government official who is competent to testify, deemed to have custody of an official record, or signed by his designee, stating that after a diligent search, no record or entry of such record is found to exist among the records in his custody, is admissible as evidence that his office has no such record or entry, provided that, if the hearing or trial is a proceeding other than a preliminary hearing, the procedures set forth in subsection G of § 18.2-472.1 for admission of an affidavit have been satisfied, mutatis mutandis, and the accused has not objected to the admission of the affidavit pursuant to the procedures set forth in subsection H of § 18.2-472.1 , mutatis mutandis. Nothing in this section shall be construed to affect the admissibility of affidavits in civil cases under § 8.01-390 .
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