Legal First: Marine Court Martial Uses Live Internet Video

Marines are allowing servicemen around the world to give testimonies via video.

ByABC News
February 11, 2009, 9:53 PM

July 31, 2007— -- CAMP PENDLETON, California -- A military justice tribunal convened to probe the killings of 24 civilians in Haditha, Iraq, faced a daunting problem last month: how to fairly take testimony and allow cross-examination of a slew of service members deployed around the globe in the middle of a war. Their solution was the internet.

While the hearing was held at this Marine base about 40 miles north of San Diego, half-a-dozen witnesses, including a two-star general at the Pentagon, a first lieutenant in Kuwait and a Marine on a ship steaming toward Iraq, gave testimony over a live two-way video stream, in an unprecedented trial by video that earned mixed reviews from lawyers.

Many criminal courts already conduct arraignments of incarcerated suspects by video -- with the defendant's waiver of the right to appear. But little else in court proceedings has been done by video conferencing, and in a criminal-justice system resistant to change, adoption has been slow. So the Marines took a page from international courts, which routinely marshal testimony from far-flung places and have found video links nearly indispensable.

"It happens regularly at international tribunals," says Stanford University law professor Allen Weiner, who served on the World Court's Yugoslavia war-crime tribunal. "We took testimony from Bosnia to the Hague for witnesses who felt it was too dangerous to travel."

The Marine Corps used systems from Tandberg, a Norwegian company, and California-based Polycom. The video signals were encrypted for security, then sent out over DoD switches or the internet, depending on the destination. In all, the video testimony in last month's evidentiary hearings unfolded with few glitches, says Marine Master Sgt. Ted Brunnell.

"Occasionally, we run into a satellite that just doesn't have enough power, or congestion on the network, but it usually clears itself quickly," Brunnell says.

During the testimony, the link to Kuwait held steady, while the links to the Pentagon and the personnel carrier were interrupted several times. "Ships are moving targets and it can be tough to locate and lock," Brunnell adds.