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Wuterich an evidence professor’s view.
Here is a commentary from Prof. Colin Miller on his blog I love to read about Wuterich. He begins:
All but two states have some type of reporter’s privilege. Similarly, most federal courts have recognized some type of reporter’s privilege as well. But what about military courts? Well, to this point, they haven’t recognized a reporter’s privilege, and that did not change with the recent opinion of the United States Navy-Marine Corps of Criminal Appeals in United States v. Wuterich, 2009 WL 2730890 (N.M.Ct.Crim.App. 2009).
Prof. Miller concludes:
Reading between the lines of the opinion, though, it seems clear that the identified controversy is not over whether a reporter’s privilege exists but over whether it applies to non-confidential sources, such as the sources in Wuterich. Thus, given a case with a confidential source, I would expect the military courts to recognize a reporter’s privilege.
Wuterich still has a petition for a writ of certiorari pending at the U. S. Supreme Court, and will go to conference on 29 September 2009. Dwight ML Sullivan is counsel of record for Wuterich. Here is a link to some of his blogging on the case. Here is a link to the cert petition. I should clarify that the cert. petition relates to jurisdiction of the appellate courts to hear the prosecution appeal of this case under Article 62, UCMJ.