(a) At any time after charges have been signed, as provided in section 27-171, any party may take oral or written depositions unless an authority competent to convene a court-martial for the trial of those charges forbids it for good cause. If a deposition is to be taken before charges are referred for trial, such authority may designate commissioned officers to represent the prosecution and the defense and may authorize those officers to take the deposition of any witness.

(b) A party at whose instance a deposition is to be taken shall give to every other party reasonable written notice of the time and place for taking the deposition.

(c) Depositions may be taken before and authenticated by any military or civil officer authorized by the laws of the state or by the laws of the place where the deposition is taken to administer oaths.

(d) A duly authenticated deposition taken upon reasonable notice to the other parties, so far as otherwise admissible under the rules of evidence, may be read in evidence before any court-martial or in any proceeding before a court of inquiry, if it appears: (1) That the witness resides or is beyond the state in which the courts-martial or court of inquiry is ordered to sit, or beyond the distance of one hundred miles from the place of trial or hearing; (2) that the witness by reason of death, age, sickness, bodily infirmity, imprisonment, military necessity, nonamenability to process, or other reasonable cause, is unable to or refuses to appear and testify in person at the place of trial or hearing; or (3) that the present whereabouts of the witness is unknown.

(1967, P.A. 717, S. 51.)