Copies of all records and documents on record or on file in the offices of the various departments of the United States and of this state or any other state or territory of the United States or any federally recognized Indian tribe, when duly certified by the respective officers having by law the custody thereof, under their respective seals where such officers have official seals, must be admitted in evidence in the courts of this state.
RCW 5.44.040
Certified copies of public records as evidence.
Applied in 59 court decisions — leading case State v. Davis (2000)
Most recently applied in State Of Washington v. Nicholas P. Bajardi (April 2018)
2019 c 39 s 2; 1991 c 59 s 1; 1891 c 19 s 16; Code 1881 s 432; 1854 p 195 s 336; RRS s 1257.
How often courts cite this section
Court decisions citing this, by year. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.
Official source: Washington State Legislature. Reproduced from public-domain Washington statutes; confirm against the official source for the current text. Not legal advice.