Reports of investigations and autopsies, and the records thereof, on file in the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner or in the office of any county medical examiner, shall be received as evidence in any court or other proceeding, and copies of records, photographs, laboratory findings and records on file in the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner or in the office of any county medical examiner, when attested by the chief medical examiner or by the county medical examiner, assistant county medical examiner or coroner in whose office the same are filed, shall be received as evidence in any court or other proceeding for any purpose for which the original could be received without any proof of the official character of the person whose name is signed thereto unless objected to by counsel: Provided, That statements of witnesses or other persons and conclusions upon extraneous matters are not hereby made admissible.
W. Va. Code § 61-12-13
Reports and records received as evidence; copies
Applied in 5 court decisions — leading case 229 W. Va. 756 - State v. Kennedy (2012)
Most recently applied in State of West Virginia Terry Allen Blevins (May 2013)
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: West Virginia Legislature. Reproduced from public-domain West Virginia statutes; confirm against the official source for the current text. Not legal advice.