VA · jury_instructions
Va. Model Jury Instr. Crim. No. 40.100
Obscene—Definition
A [writing, picture, or similar visual representation or sound recording, etc.] is obscene when,
considered as a whole:
(1) Applying local community standards, it has as its dominant theme or purpose an appeal to the
prurient interest in sex, that is, a shameful or morbid interest in nudity, sexual conduct, sexual
excitement, excretory functions or products thereof or sadomasochistic abuse, and which goes
substantially beyond customary limits of candor in description or representation of such matters;
and
(2) A reasonable person would not find it has any serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific
value.
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
b7d429309ed2548afb00854e3aef0f6f674c45cd4828861e9cc260c49f167c54
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.