Admissibility of Digital Evidence in Virginia

Here is a paper I wrote for Champlain College's "Practice of Digital Investigations" course as a part of the M.S. in Digital Forensic Science curriculum.  The assignment was as follows:

Prepare a report identifying the requirements for having digital evidence accepted in a criminal or civil court within your jurisdiction. You should identify relevant state and federal legislation, and court rules or instructions. Your report should include the requirements for presenting expert evidence, this includes any federal or state rules of evidence that apply to expert testimony.

Your answer should be approximately 2500 words. You may choose to focus on civil or criminal cases.

This was quite a learning experience for me since I have no background in court proceedings or law enforcement.  Before researching this topic, I assumed there were specific rules governing digital evidence as opposed to physical evidence, which I found was quite a faulty assumption.

Admissibility of Digital Evidence in Courts of the Commonwealth of Virginia