Sec. 49.

(1) At any time after charges have been signed as provided in section 30, a party may take an oral or written deposition unless the military judge or a court-martial without a military judge hearing the case, or if the case is not being heard, the convening authority forbids the deposition for good cause. If a deposition is to be taken before charges are referred for trial, the authority may designate commissioned officers to represent the prosecution and the defense and may authorize those officers to take the deposition of any witness.

(2) The party at whose insistence a deposition is to be taken shall give to each of the other parties reasonable written notice of the time and place for taking the deposition.

(3) Depositions may be taken before and authenticated by a 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.

(4) An 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 a court-martial or in a proceeding before the court of inquiry, if 1 of the following appears:

(a) A witness resides or is beyond the state in which the court-martial or court of inquiry is ordered to sit, or beyond the distance of 100 miles from the place of trial or hearing.

(b) The witness, by reason of death, age, sickness, bodily infirmity, imprisonment, military necessity, nonamenability to process, or other reasonable cause, is unable or refuses to appear and testify in person at the place of trial or hearing.

(c) The present location of the witness is unknown.

History: 1980, Act 523, Eff. Mar. 31, 1981