Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca10-90-02150/USCOURTS-ca10-90-02150-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Brian T. Ellzey
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

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FILE o· 

UaJted Srates Court of Appeals 

Tenth Ci!'r.uir 

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS 

TENTH CIRCUIT 

AUG 2 3 1990 

&OBERT L. HOECKER 

Clerk 

IN RE: Grand Jury Proceedings 

BRIANT. ELLZEY, 

Appellant, 

v. 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 

_Appellee. 

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ORDER AND JUDGMENT * 

No. 90-2150 

(D.C. No. MISC. 6312) 

(D.N.M.) 

Before MOORE, TACHA, and BRORBY, Circuit Judges. 

Brian T. Ellzey appeals the order of the district court 

holding him in contempt for failure to testify before a grand 

jury. Ellzey contends that the district court erred by: (1) 

conducting his contempt trial in secret; and (2) finding that 

Ellzey was not entitled to assert an alleged parent/child 

testimonial privilege. We affirm. 

I. 

On April 25, 1990, Ellzey was subpoened to testify before the 

May 1990 session of the grand jury regarding an investigation 

concerning the participation of his father and stepmother in 

extortion activity for which Ellzey had been convicted on January 

* This order and judgment has no precedential value and shall 

not be cited, or used by any court within the Tenth Circuit, 

except for purposes of establishing the doctrines of the law of 

the case, res judicata, or collateral estoppal. 10th Cir. R. 

36.3. 

Appellate Case: 90-2150 Document: 010110041442 Date Filed: 08/23/1990 Page: 1 
26, 1990, and sentenced to forty-one months imprisonment on April 

12, 1990. Ellzey's appearance was continued from May until June 

1990 based upon his counsel's representation that Ellzey would 

assert his privilege against self-incrimination. 

On May 29, 1990, the government moved, pursuant to 18 u.s.c. 

S 6001 et seg., for an order compelling Ellzey to give testimony 

before the grand jury. The district court entered an order 

compelling Ellzey to testify on June 4, 1990. Ellzey promptly 

filed a motion to quash the subpoena, asserting: (1) the 

application for immunity was invalid because signed by an 

assistant United States attorney; (2) the grant of immunity was 

not coextensive .with the fifth amendment privilege; and (3) Ellzey 

had a viable family privilege not to testify against his father 

and stepmother. 

A hearing on the immunity motion was held on June 14, 1990, 

at which the government tendered another immunity motion to 

obviate Ellzey's procedural objection to the assistant United 

States attorney's signature. During the June 14, 1990 hearing, 

Ellzey tendered FBI-302 reports. These reports had been tendered 

to Ellzey as potential Brady materials and had been ordered sealed 

by the district court. The reports included information which 

could tend to establish Ellzey's father's complicity in the 

extortion activities. The district court denied Ellzey's motion 

to quash the subpoena, and entered an order on June 14, 1990 

compelling Ellzey to testify. 

Ellzey then appeared in front of the grand jury on June 14, 

1990 and persisted in his refusal to testify. On June 18, 1990, 

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Appellate Case: 90-2150 Document: 010110041442 Date Filed: 08/23/1990 Page: 2 
the government filed a motion to show cause why Ellzey should not 

be held in contempt. An order to show cause was entered on June 

20, 1990. Ellzey responded, and a hearing was held on July 3, 

1990 on the court's order to show cause. The court found Ellzey 

not in contempt due to an ambiguity in the original order 

compelling Ellzey to testify. 

Thereafter, on July 6, 1990, the government moved for an 

amended order compelling Ellzey to testify. Ellzey responded, and 

after a hearing on July 10, 1990, the district court once again 

compelled Ellzey to testify. Ellzey once again refused to 

testify, and the United States filed a motion to show cause why 

Ellzey should not be held in contempt. The court granted a show 

cause order on July 11. On July 12, Ellzey filed his response. 

On July 13, a hearing was held. The district court found that the 

order compelling testimony was a valid court order; that Ellzey 

had refused to testify despite being shown the court order; and 

that Ellzey had no just cause for refusing to obey that court 

order. The court then ordered Ellzey sentenced to confinement for 

the term of the grand jury, including extensions, but in no event 

beyond 18 months. Additionally, Ellzey was fined $25 per day 

until he complies with the court order of July 10, 1990. 

Ellzey filed a notice of appeal on July 23, 1990. 

II. 

Ellzey's first contention is that the district court's order 

holding him in contempt must be vacated because it violated his 

constitutional right to a public trial. We disagree. 

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We review a district court's order finding a person in 

contempt for abuse of discretion,~ In~ Grand~ 

Proceedings, 797 F.2d 906, 907 (10th Cir. 1986). Issues raising 

pure questions of law, however, are reviewed de novo. See United 

States Y..:... Singer Mfg. co·., 374 U.S. 174, 192-93 (1963). A 

contemnor is entitled to a "public contempt proceeding, excluding 

the public only to the extent necessary to protect the secrecy of 

the grand jury process. " In re Rosahn, 671 F.2d 690, 697 (2d Cir. 

1982); see also In~ Grand~ Proceedings (Hill), 786 F.2d 3, 7 

(1st Cir. 1986); Matter of Fula, 672 F . 2d 279, 283 (2d Cir. 1982); 

Fed. R. Crim. P. 6(e)(5). The issue is whether closing Ellzey's 

contempt proceeding was "necessary" to protect the secrecy of the 

grand jury process. 

We hold that it was. Ellzey tendered FBI-302 reports. These 

reports had earlier been sealed by court order. Furthermore, the 

materials in these reports tended to establish Ellzey's father's 

and stepmother's complicity in the bank extortion scheme. We find 

no error in the district court's implicit determination that these 

reports were "substantive grand jury matters" and that public 

airing of the reports would have compromised the grand jury's 

investigation. Accordingly, we find that the court did not err in 

closing the contempt proceedings to the public, especially where 

the targets of the grand jury investigation are among those 

seeking entrance to the hearing. While it may have been better 

practice to reopen the hearing for the actual finding of contempt, 

see Levine Y..:... United States, 362 U.S. 610, 619 (1960), we cannot 

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Appellate Case: 90-2150 Document: 010110041442 Date Filed: 08/23/1990 Page: 4 
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say the district court abused its discretion under the 

circumstances of this case. 

III. 

Ellzey also contends that he had "just cause" for refusing to 

obey the court order to testify because of an alleged "parent/ 

child" or "familial" privilege. We disagree. In In re Grand JJg:y 

Proceedings of John Doe :Y..:. United States, 842 F.2d 244 (10th 

Cir.), cert. denied, --- U.S.---, 109 s. Ct. 233 (1988), we 

examined an identical -claim of privilege. In Doe, we determined 

that the interests in family integrity, while great, was not 

sufficient to outweigh the general public interest in obtaining 

all the evidence available. Id. at 245-48. Accordingly, we 

rejected the invitation to create or recognize such a parent/child 

or family privilege. 

We adhere to our determination in Doe. If anything, the 

circumstances in this case are even less compelling than those in 

Doe, which involved a minor child and possible Free Exercise 

implications. Ellzey has not provided us with any reasoned 

justification for permitting the withholding of pertinent evidence 

from the grand jury. The district court did not err in requiring 

Ellzey to testify. 

IV. 

We find that the district court did not err in closing the 

contempt hearing to the public where substantive grand jury 

matters would be disclosed, although we note that it would have 

been preferable to reopen the hearing for the actual imposition of 

sentence. We also find that the district court did not err in 

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finding no parent/child or family privilege from testifying before 

the grand jury. Accordingly, the judgment of the district court 

is AFFIRMED. 

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ENTERED FOR THE COURT 

Deanell Reece Tacha 

Circuit Judge 

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