Military Court Orders Judge to View CBS Tapes

Dennis Wuterich arrives in San Diego for a hearing in front of a military court in August 2007. © 2007 Associated Press.
Photo by Denis Poroy
Story by Mike Schottenstein

CBS is not out of the water in its quest to keep from having to turn over outtakes from an interview it conducted with a marine last year, the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press Reports (RCFP). A judge will have to review the tapes from a CBS interview requested by the U.S. government, the Armed Forces Court of Appeals ruled Monday in a 3-2 decision.

CBS interviewed Matt Wuterich and aired the interview on 60 Minutes last year. Wuterich has been charged with "dereliction of duty" and "involuntary manslaughter," according to the RCFP. Wuterich was leading a military convoy in Haditha, Iraq, in 2005 that killed 24 Iraqis, including women and young children after a roadside bombing, the RCFP reports.

The government, believing the outtakes from interview might help in its case against Wuterich, got a subpoena requesting CBS hand over the tapes. CBS claims the tapes are privileged and Wuterich's story to the government was the same as what he said on the tapes, so it should not have to turn them over.

A military judge agreed with CBS and refused to make it honor the subpoena without even viewing the tapes himself to see if they did actually contain useful information. The Court of Appeals remanded the case because they decided the judge should have looked at the tapes before making his ruling, the RCFP wrote. The judges did not rule on whether the tapes fell under reporters privilege.

According to the RCFP, the majority decision said, "[The outtakes] constitute a potentially unique source of evidence that is not necessarily duplicated by any other material."