Posted on 09/19/2008 9:28:52 AM PDT by RedRover
The CBS television network battled it out with the Marine Corps Wednesday morning at the US Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces in Washington, D.C. The fight is over outtakes from a 60 Minutes interview with a Marine sergeant accused of killing civilians in Haditha, Iraq.
Lawyers representing the three sides (the Marine Corps, CBS and SSgt Frank Wuterich) told the five-judge panel why, and why not, the Marine Corps should be entitled to video recordings the news program didn’t use.
The interview was conducted by correspondent Scott Pelley for the 60 Minutes investigation, "The Killings in Haditha". It was originally broadcast on March 18, 2007 and has been rebroadcast twice since.
The judges heard several mutually exclusive arguments.
The Marines said a lower court that refused them the video erred and its decision should be reversed.
Lawyers for CBS argued the Marine Corps has no right to its property. The Navy-Marine Corps Court of Criminal Appeals in June denied a CBS motion to quash the subpoena demanding the video.
Instead, it ordered the military judge presiding over Wuterich’s court-martial to review the outtakes in his chambers to determine if they contain anything incriminating before absolutely refusing to give the Marine Corps what it wants.
Navy Lt Kathleen Kadlec, a JAG lawyer representing Wuterich, asked the court to review the lower court order for the trial judge to review the tapes. Defense attorneys simply don’t want the video to be included in the government’s body of evidence.
Wuterich has been in legal limbo since he was charged with murder and other war crimes on December 21, 2006. Seven co-defendants have either been exonerated in pre-trial maneuvering or by acquittal.
The government is appealing the dismissal of charges against LtCol Jeffrey Chessani, Wuterich’s battalion commander at Haditha. Early this summer, the military judge presiding over the career Marines’ case dismissed the charges against him after determining Chessani was a victim of unlawful command influence.
William Decicco, the Clerk of the US Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces, said he “can’t even hazard a guess on a time frame” when the judges will rule on the arguments.
“The judges will give it a high priority,” Decicco said.
The direct issue before the court was a procedural one, dealing with what legal standard courts should apply in determining whether to grant an in camera review of subpoenaed material. But the outcome of the decision will bear on whether CBS has to turn over its un-aired tapes.
Many of the judges’ questions focused on the CBS outtakes, and how a court would gauge their relevance to a case without first watching the tapes. No one other than CBS knows whether the tapes have evidence that help or hurt Wuterich, the panel pointed out.
Lee Levine, attorney for CBS, argued that there was no difference between the information Wuterich provided in the outtakes and the account he gave in the court record.
“This isn’t a case where material facts are in dispute,” Levine argued. “It’s a fallacy that the government thinks there are distinctions between the tape and the other information the government has.”
Levine also urged the court not to develop a legal standard that would make it easier and more common for military courts to conduct in camera reviews of journalistic materials. Even though such reviews are less intrusive than requiring that the material be disclosed to all parties in a case, Levine argued that in camera reviews still impinge upon journalists’ ability to gather news.
The government attorney, Timothy Delgado, argued that the outtakes of the CBS interview are highly relevant to the government’s prosecution of Wuterich. And the government has no other way to get the tapes other than through CBS, Delgado argued.
“It’s really common sense that [all the information the government needs] is already there,” Levine said.
If CBS doesn’t like what’s going on in Haditha, send them over there and let them fix it.
Just taking a wild stab, I could be wrong but I'd guess if there was anything that would hurt Wuterich it has already been aired.
I watched the interview with Wuterich, and while it is obviously a tragedy that innocent people died, I heard nothing in the interview that pointed at a deliberate killing of innocent people. These marines were in an incredibly stressful situation and making instant life and death decisions. This kind of thing happens in every war and certainly happened many times in WWII. If there was no deliberate killing of innocent civilians, as there was in My Lai, then there was no war crime.
LOL! The idea that CBS would withhold anything damaging is just ridiculous. That’s what makes this such a shamefaced fishing expedition / stalling tactic.
SSgt Wuterich will be exonerated. But God knows how much older he’ll be before he sees the inside of a courtroom.
I would bet on that, the prosecution is on a fishing expedition.
Another classic ping, Red.
Bizarro World is exactly right, Lance. I can’t believe CBS lawyers are the guys in the white hats.
Steve McQueen as Hilts, “The Cooler Ping”.
Even prosecutors must know that by now. Losing every other case should have taught them that much. Why they are continuing to pursue SSgt Wuterich is anyone's guess.
If anything, CBS & the rest of the alphabets are worried that they would have to divulge resources such as the one that gave CNN a terrorist tape that CNN played on TV. Remember Lynne Cheney demanding that Woof Blitzoid reveal where they got it? He sputtered and declined to reveal who shot the video.
One would think the Marine Corp would be happy the so-called Hiditha Massacre has been debunked. Is there anyone out there who could provide some incite as why it is in the Marine Corps’ interest to keep stoking this thing?
Commandant to Hilts, “Kooooler” :)
Hilts to Kommandant: “You’ll still be here when I get out, won’t you?” ;)
You know, that movie REALLY holds up. I loved it in the ‘60s and loved it when I saw it again recently. I was blinking back tears at the end. The sense of patriotism, comradeship, purpose, and self-sacrifice is just so moving. It’s one of the All-Time Greats.
LOL! The look on the Commandants face. Classic!
It really is one of the All-Time Greats, great cast and very good acting. When it was made, less than twenty years after the war people could relate to it, especially those of us who had dads, uncles and other relation in the war.
LOL..has Nat been reading my posts?
Doesn't everyone?
Woes them.
As you indicated. CBS is no friend in this case. They probably are worried about giving in then having to give up materials they obtained from terrorist for the past few years as a matter of course. Pelly did his best to screw the good Sargent during the initial interview.
Yes, EVERYONE reads your posts and “legal limbo” is definitely one of the best ways to describe this case!
Ya...but we all know hell is the real word to describe your son’s last 2 years.
No, it would open them up to divulging that they routinely use insurgent stringers to acquire propaganda from our enemies. Of course, with the uneducated Bread-and-Circus citizenry we are saddled with that probably wouldn't be held against them.
Thanks for the info, Red.
Ping
Right. Also, I’m wondering if the senior Marine Corps officer or officers continuing to push this thing were promoted to general officer rank during Clitoon years. Chairman of Joint Chiefs, Admiral Mullen, was one that got his star during Clintoon tenure. Aside from comments he’s made not favorable to Bush or our soldiers, one also wonders: 1. Why Bush made an admiral joint chief when we are fighting a land war and 2. Why the man has not been fired. Bush never cleaned house after his election to president—except for a few Justice Dept lawyers. The stay behind Clintonistas have repeatedly biten him in the form of leaks and actively and publicly working against his agenda. So much for the “new tone”.
For me, this whole debacle only and illuminates and exacerbates the Hamdania prosecutions.
Motivation, IMHO, is to kill the Corps first, and then the rest of the branches.
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