Murder of the first degree shall be punished by confinement in the penitentiary for life.
W. Va. Code § 61-2-2
Penalty for murder of first degree
Applied in 13 court decisions — leading case State v. Higgins (1979)
Most recently applied in – State v. Patterson – (January 2020)
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.