Chap. 171.—An ACT to amend and re-enact Section 4806 of the Code of Virginia,
as amended, relating to the functions and duties of coroners. [H B 191]

Approved March 12, 1946

Be it enacted by the General Assembly of Virginia :

1. That section forty-eight hundred six of the Code of Virginia, as
amended, be amended and re-enacted, as follows:

Section 4806. Coroner to be Notified of any Sudden, Violent,
Unnatural or Suspicious Death, or Death Without Medical Attendance.
—It shall be the duty of the physician, undertaker, or other person in at-
tendance, to notify the coroner hereinafter required to view the body of
any sudden, violent, unnatural or suspicious death, or a death without
medical attendance, and upon notice of such death, the coroner of the
City of Richmond, if the dead body be in the penitentiary, and in any other
case the coroner of the county or the corporation in which the dead body
is, Shall view the body and make inquiry into the circumstances of the
said death, and after an inquiry had, as aforesaid, if facts are revealed
sufficient to create in the mind of the said coroner a reasonable belief
that the person whose body he shall have been called to view came to his
or her death by murder or manslaughter, or by the contrivance, aiding,
procuring, or other misconduct of any person or persons, he shall fix a
time and place for a hearing to determine when, how, and by what means
the said person came to his death; provided, however, no such hearing
or inquest shall be held and no autopsy shall be performed unless and
until the same be requested by either the Commonwealth’s Attorney, or
the judge of the circuit or corporation court, of the county or corpora-
tion wherein such dead body is, or of the county or corporation wherein
the injury occurred or the illness commenced if the dead body 1s in an-
other county or corporation ; provided that in any case of sudden, violent,
or suspicious death, and the body is buried without any inquest or autopsy
being held or performed, it shall be the duty of the coroner, upon being
advised of such facts, to notify the Commonwealth's attorney thereof,
who shall communicate the same to the judge of the circuit or corpora-
tion court, as the case may be, and such judge may, by an order entered
in the common law order book of his court, require that the body be
exhumed and an autopsy held thereon, and the results of such autopsy
shall be communicated by the physician performing the same, to the
judge who ordered it, for such action thereon as he, or the court of which
he is judge, deems proper.