Prosecutions for offenses against the state, unless otherwise provided, shall be by presentment or indictment. The trial of a person on a charge of felony shall always be by indictment; and indictment may be found in the first instance, whether the accused has been examined or committed by a justice or not.
W. Va. Code § 62-2-1
Prosecutions to be by presentment or indictment
Applied in 5 court decisions — leading case Guthrie v. Boles (1967)
Most recently applied in State of West Virginia v. Megan Davis (November 2015)
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.