Virginia Code

Va. Code Ann. § 18.2-39 (2026)

"Lynching" defined

✓ laws through the 2026 session (checked Sept. 2026)
Find cases: SyfertCases citing this section VA-LISlaw.lis.virginia.gov JustiaTitle on Justia CornellLII Search CasesGoogle Scholar

Any act of violence by a mob upon the body of any person, which shall result in the death of such person, shall constitute a "lynching."

Code 1950, § 18.1-28; 1960, c. 358; 1975, cc. 14, 15.

Notes of Decisions
Cited in 4 cases (2 in the last 5 years), 2005–2026 · leading case: Corado v. Commonwealth, 623 S.E.2d 452 (Va. Ct. App. 2005).
Corado v. Commonwealth, 623 S.E.2d 452 (Va. Ct. App. 2005). · cites it 6× “Corado confines his claim of reversible error to the charge of lynching under Code § 18.2-39. We limit our analysis accordingly.”
Paiz v. Commonwealth, 682 S.E.2d 71 (Va. Ct. App. 2009). · cites it 12× “” Code §§ 18.2-39 and 18.2-40. “Murder by mob” is a shorthand description of both Code § 18.”
Lamari Najek House v. Commonwealth of Virginia, 929 S.E.2d 444 (Va. Ct. App. 2026). · cites it 8× ““‘Murder by mob’ is a shorthand description” of the offense of “lynching” as defined in Code § 18.2-39. Paiz v. Commonwealth, 54 Va.”
Jack Marshall Heverin v. Commonwealth of Virginia, No. 1239222 (Va. Ct. App. May 14, 2024). · cites it 2× ““[I]t is only when one member of a mob commits one of the crimes enumerated in Code §§ 18.2-39 to 18.2-42.1 that all members of the mob can be held collectively responsible solely because of their mob membership.”
Annotations are extracted automatically from the opinions in the Syfert caselaw corpus and ranked by authority, recency, and treatment. Dots show Syfertize treatment of the citing case itself.