An Act to amend and reenact §§ 18.2-456 and 19.2-128 of the Code of Virginia, relating to penalties for failure to appear; contempt.
HB933 amends Virginia law governing contempt and penalties for failure to appear in court. The bill adds a new contempt provision allowing courts to punish a person summarily for a willful failure to appear after being charged with a felony or misdemeanor or after being released on a summons, while requiring the court to consider mitigating circumstances when deciding whether the failure was willful. It also requires the judge to identify in writing which contempt ground applies.
The bill also revises the separate failure-to-appear statute to define “willfully fails to appear” as intentional conduct aimed at avoiding the judicial process. It directs courts to consider mitigating factors such as illness, injury, unforeseen medical conditions, transportation problems, lack of dependent care, and affirmative efforts to communicate or correct the missed appearance. The bill preserves existing criminal penalties for willful failure to appear: a Class 6 felony for felony cases and a Class 1 misdemeanor for misdemeanor cases, and it clarifies that the statute does not apply to people who are incarcerated, detained, or in law-enforcement custody when required to appear.
HB933 changes §§ 18.2-456 and 19.2-128 of the Code of Virginia by expanding contempt authority and refining the standards and penalties for failure to appear. It gives courts an additional summary contempt tool for willful nonappearance, while also preserving the separate criminal prosecution pathway under § 19.2-128. The bill affects defendants released pretrial, on summons, or with suspended execution of sentence, as well as courts and judicial officers responsible for enforcing appearance requirements.
The available record shows no committee transcript or recorded vote information, so there is no documented debate to gauge support or opposition. Based on the enacted text, the bill appears to reflect a balanced approach: it strengthens enforcement against intentional nonappearance while expressly requiring courts to consider mitigating circumstances and excluding people who are incarcerated or otherwise in custody. That structure suggests an effort to address court attendance problems without treating every missed appearance as culpable.
The main policy tension in HB933 is between stricter enforcement of court appearances and protection for people whose absence may be unintentional or unavoidable. Supporters would likely favor the bill’s ability to deter deliberate evasion of the judicial process and give courts another enforcement mechanism. Potential concerns would center on the breadth of summary contempt authority and whether the new contempt provision could be used too aggressively, especially in cases involving transportation, medical, childcare, or communication barriers. The bill attempts to address those concerns by requiring consideration of mitigating circumstances and by excluding incarcerated or detained individuals from its reach.