Rule 2:601.GENERAL RULE OF COMPETENCY

Rule 2:601 starts from a presumption in favor of letting people testify. Subdivision (a) makes every person competent to be a witness unless some other evidentiary principle, a Rule of Court, a Virginia statute, or the common law says otherwise. That default matters because it puts the burden on the party challenging a witness, not on the witness to prove fitness before taking the stand.

Subdivision (b) gives the trial court a narrow tool to overcome that presumption. A judge may declare a witness incompetent, but only after finding that the witness lacks sufficient physical or mental capacity to testify truthfully, accurately, or understandably. The three conditions — truthfulness, accuracy, and understandability — describe distinct capacities: a witness might understand the obligation to tell the truth but be unable to perceive or recall events accurately, or might have accurate memories but be unable to communicate them in a way the court and jury can follow.

Because the rule leaves competency determinations to the trial court’s judgment rather than fixing rigid categories — an age cutoff for children, or a diagnosis-based bar for people with mental illness — the same standard applies across witness types. The court examines the individual witness’s capacities on the facts before it, not a label attached to that witness.