Commonwealth v. Parker

By JUDGE HENRY H. WHITING

The Court reserved two of the defendant’s written grounds of the motion to set aside the verdict for further consideration after receipt of a transcript of a portion of the trial testimony.

Those two grounds are ruled upon in this letter.

First, the Court should not have permitted John Bryant, a jailor, to testify because he was in the courtroom for a short time during the taking of testimony despite the exclusion of the witnesses by Court order on motion by defendant made pursuant to the provisions of Virginia Code § 19.2-265.1. That statute requires the exclusion of…