Chap. 213.—An ACT to amend and re-enact Section 5985, as amended, of the
Code of Virginia, relating to exemptions from jury service. [H 77]

Approved March 14, 1944

Be it enacted by the General Assembly of Virginia:

1. That section fifty-nine hundred eighty-five, as amended, of the
Code of Virginia be amended and re-enacted, as follows:

Section 5985. The Governor and Lieutenant-Governor of the State,
the members of the General Assembly while actually in session, practicing
attorneys, licensed practicing physicians, duly licensed optometrists,
dentists, officers of any court, telephone and telegraph operators actually
employed as such, pilots licensed under the laws of the United States or
this State, the President and Vice-President of the United States, the
members of both houses of Congress and their respective officers, but only
while such houses of Congress are actually in session, custom house
officers, all postmasters, post officers, post riders and stage drivers, all
mariners actually employed in the service of any citizen or merchant
within the United States, the Secretary of the Commonwealth, and Attor-
ney General, the Treasurer, Auditor of Public Accounts, Comptroller,
members of the State Corporation Commission, the Commissioner of
Agriculture, the Superintendent of Public Instruction, the clerks of both
houses of the General Assembly, but only while such houses are actually
in session, the judge of any court, all professors, tutors and pupils of
public seminaries, while such public seminaries are actually in session,
all ministers of the gospel licensed to preach according to the rules of their
sect, sheriffs, constables, all persons while actually engaged in harvesting
or securing grain, potatoes or hay or in cutting or securing tobacco,
keepers of the county and corporation jails, superintendents and servants
of public hospitals and lunatic asylums, the superintendent of the peni-
tentiary and his assistants and the persons composing the guard, the
police in cities and towns, and all ferrymen necessarily and personally
employed in or at any ferry established by law, undertakers who pay a
license tax as such, and their regularly employed assistants, and the active
officers and members of the Virginia National Guard, the Virginia State
Guard and the Virginia naval militia, and contributing members of the
Virginia National Guard and the Virginia State Guard who have con-
tributed not less than twenty-five dollars ($25.00) per annum, shall be
exempt from serving on juries in civil and criminal cases, but the active
regularly employed and paid members of the fire department of any city
or town shall not be required to serve at any time, nor shall any. registered
pharmacist while engaged in the practice of his profession be required
to serve, nor any fruit grower while actively engaged in harvesting his
crops. The citizens of Tangier island in Accomack county and of Broad
Water and Cobb islands in the county of Northampton shall be exempt
from jury service, except service on grand juries.