Rule 2:609.IMPEACHMENT BY EVIDENCE OF CONVICTION OF CRIME (derived from Code § 19.2-269)

Rule 2:609 opens with the general rule: a witness’s conviction of a crime may be admitted to impeach that witness’s credibility, subject to the limitations that follow. The rule then treats two categories of witnesses differently. Under subdivision (a), a party in a civil case or a criminal accused who testifies can be asked about a prior felony conviction or a misdemeanor conviction involving moral turpitude, and about the number of such convictions. If a conviction raised this way is denied, it may be proved with extrinsic evidence. But the name or nature of the crime — except perjury — and the details of the conviction stay out, unless offered to rebut other evidence about the prior convictions.

Subdivision (b) governs any other witness — someone who is not a party or the accused. There, the questioner may go further: the fact of a felony or moral-turpitude misdemeanor conviction, the number of such convictions, and the name and nature (though still not the details) may be elicited, or proved by extrinsic evidence if denied. That asymmetry reflects a tighter limit on what comes out about a testifying party or accused than about an ordinary witness.

Two further limits apply across the board. Subdivision (c) bars using juvenile adjudications to impeach general credibility, though they may be used to show bias if constitutionally required. Subdivision (d) bars a party who calls an adverse witness from later impeaching that same witness with a prior conviction — consistent with Rule 2:607’s bar on conviction-based impeachment of an adverse witness by the party who called it.