§ 8.01-390.2.Reports by Chief Medical Examiner received as evidence.

When a death becomes the subject of civil litigation, the medical examiner’s paperwork often carries the facts that matter most — cause, manner, findings from the autopsy itself. Section 8.01-390.2 makes that paperwork usable without extra hoops. Reports of investigations by the Chief Medical Examiner, assistants, or medical examiners, along with the records and certified autopsy reports made under the authority of Title 32.1, are received as evidence in any court or other proceeding.

The section extends the same treatment to the supporting material behind those reports. Copies of photographs, laboratory findings, and reports kept in the office of the Chief Medical Examiner or any medical examiner come in as evidence too, as long as the Chief Medical Examiner or an Assistant Chief Medical Examiner has duly attested them.

What makes this useful in practice is what it removes: the copies are admissible for any purpose the original document could serve, and without any need to prove the official character of the office or authenticate the signature of the person who signed the report. A litigant does not have to call the examiner as a witness just to get the report itself before the court.