VA · jury_instructions
Va. Model Jury Instr. Crim. No. 48.615
Person Practicing the Healing Arts or Purporting to Practice the Healing Arts—Defined
A person practicing or purporting to practice the healing arts means a person who [opens an
office for such purpose; advertises or announces to the public in any manner a readiness to practice;
uses in connection with his name the words or letters “Doctor,” “Dr.,” “M.D.,” “D.O.,” “D.P.M.,”
“D.C.,” “Healer,” “N.P.,” or any other title, word, letter or designation intending to designate or imply
that he is a practitioner of the healing arts or that he is able to heal, cure or relieve those suffering from
any injury, deformity or disease].
Evidence that a person has signed [a birth certificate, except where persons other than physicians
are required to sign; a death certificate; any statement certifying that the person has rendered
professional service to the sick or injured; a prescription for drugs or other remedial agents], if
believed, may be sufficient to establish that the defendant was a person practicing the healing arts
or purporting to practice the healing arts, unless, from all the evidence, you have a reasonable
doubt that the defendant was a person practicing or purporting to practice the healing arts.
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
50e988f7123ecbf48ccd55a13ef7b38226b0524a7b378eb859cef004a2a34d02
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.