Chap. 139.—An ACT to amend and re-enact section 6217 of the Code of Virginia,
concerning the summoning witnesses, and enlarging the same to authorize
courts to take recognizance from witnesses in civil cases. [H B 120]

Approved March 20, 1930

1. Be it enacted by the general assembly of Virginia, That section
sixty-two hundred and seventeen of the Code of Virginia, be amended
and re-enacted so as to read as follows:

Section 6217. A summons may be issued, directed as prescribed
in section six thousand and fifty-five, commanding the officer to sum-
mon any person to attend on the day and at the place that such attend-
ance is desired, to give evidence before a court, grand jury, arbitrators,
umpire, justice, coroner, surveyor, notary, or any commissioner ap-
pointed by a court. The summons may be issued, if the attendance be
desired at a court, by the clerk thereof; 1f before a grand jury, by the
attorney for the.Commonwealth, or the clerk of the court, at the instance
of the attorney for the Commonwealth; and, in other cases, by the clerk
of the circuit court of the county or the clerk of the corporation court
of the city in which the attendance is desired, or if it be desired before
a justice, by such or any other justice. It shall express on whose behalf,
and in what case or about what matter, the witness is to attend. This
section shall be deemed to authorize a summons to compel attendance
before commissioners or other persons appointed by authority of
another State, but only in case they be citizens of this State, and the
summons requires the attendance of a witness at a place not out of his
county or city; provided, also, that upon the continuance of any case,
either civil or criminal, in a court of record, the court shall, upon the
request of any party litigant, require such party’s witnesses then present,
to enter into recognizance in such penalty as the court may deem proper,
either with or without security, in the discretion of the court, for their
appearance to give evidence in said cause, on such day as may then
be fixed for the trial thereof at a subsequent term of such court, such
recognizance to be taken conditioned, and entered of record in the same
manner provided in section forty-nine hundred and seventy-three, for
taking recognizance.