Friday, March 13, 2009

Wuterich Qualified Privilege Ruling Appealed (?)

I am trying to confirm through three sources that the government has filed a notice of appeal in the Wuterich court-martial. As we covered, here, yesterday, Judge Meeks ruled that CBS News had a qualified newsgatherer privilege and withheld tapes containing unaired video of an interview with the accused, SSgt Frank Wuterich. LtCol Meeks also commented that he thought there was nothing new on the tapes that was not already available to the government. Two sources have said that the government has reportedly ignored our incantations, and told Judge Meeks that the unaired portions of the video tapes that they have not seen constitute "evidence that [would be nice to have] of a fact material in the proceeding." Anyone able to confirm? Email us, here, the ruling and/or the notice of appeal if it was filed.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Perhaps the government is trying to parlay Judge Meeks' ruling into binding precedent.

No, I can't think of a reason they'd want to do that, but still.

Anonymous said...

Because sometimes knowing what the rules are is better than rolling the dice the next time this issue presents itself.

Anonymous said...

By the way, is there such a thing as an "unqualified privilege"?

Anonymous said...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parliamentary_privilege

Mike "No Man" Navarre said...

Unquaulified privilege = Absolute Privilege. Congressman youcally are given sn absolute privilege for statements made on the floor of the House or Senate.

Anonymous said...

No Man:
You must be celebrating St. Pats at your computer. "Absolut Privilege" mabe?

Anonymous said...

Here's another--priest-penitent privilege.