VA · jury_instructions
Va. Model Jury Instr. Crim. No. 29.370
Child Cruelty or Endangerment
The defendant is charged with the crime of child [cruelty; endangerment]. The Commonwealth
must prove beyond a reasonable doubt each of the following elements of that crime.
(1) That the defendant [employed, had custody] of [name of child], who was a child under the age
of 18; and
(2) That the defendant willfully or negligently caused or permitted:
(a) the life of such child to be endangered; and/or
(b) the health of such child to be injured; and/or
(c) the child to be beaten or cruelly treated.
If you find from the evidence that the Commonwealth has proved beyond a reasonable doubt
each of the above elements of the crime as charged, then you shall find the defendant guilty of
child cruelty [but you shall not fix the punishment until your verdict has been returned and further
evidence has been heard by you].
If you find that the Commonwealth has failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt any one or
more of the elements of the crime, then you shall find the defendant not guilty.
History
Virginia Model Jury Instructions – Criminal, Release 26, October 2025. The unannotated set, posted by the Supreme Court of Virginia at vacourts.gov; the book states that it is made available with the permission of the publisher, Matthew Bender & Company, Inc.
Provenance
- Source
- vacourts.gov
- Retrieved
- 2026-10-11
- Edition
- crim-2025-10-01
- Content hash
d9b655ebb0bac47f59c189fadf7e3e07ca8aa2e4b30cf5c1e0744c84bd0dd50e
The link goes to the issuing authority’s own document — the one we read to produce this record. Where a source publishes whole titles rather than sections, your browser may need a moment to jump to the provision.
Unofficial copy of government-published law, reproduced from official sources with full provenance. Not an official publication; verify against official sources before relying on it in a filing. Records in the 'guidance' corpus, and only that corpus, are sub-regulatory (interpretive guidelines, survey procedures) and are not binding law. Validity bounds follow each jurisdiction's declared temporalBasis.