Court Opinion

ID: 9551376
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 18:52:16.077231+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:23:40.219948
License: Public Domain

Collins, J., Batjer, J., and Babcock, D. J.,
concurring:
We concur in the result announced, but would limit the holding.
We must keep clearly in mind the issue before us in this application for prohibition. Petitioners’ sole contention is the lack of jurisdiction of the trial court to require Elson to testify upon deposition, to answer fully plaintiffs’ complaint, and to require production of certain material sought by plaintiffs for an in camera inspection by the court. We are not asked to review the discretion of the lower court as to the scope or extent of its orders.
With that limitation in mind, certain conclusions emerge with great clarity. There is no doubt the Nevada trial court has personal jurisdiction over Elson, Parker, Lee, and Moreland. They are parties to the action. Even though the action seeks damages against them personally for what they apparently did as members of the F.B.I., they neither have sought to remove the *523entire action to the Federal court nor end Nevada’s jurisdiction over them as individuals for what they did as Federal agents. Because of their hybrid role the Attorney General of the United States seeks to exercise control of their personal actions in the lawsuit. Yet he declines or has failed to appear in the action himself and litigate in a meaningful manner the nature and extent of the executive privilege he insists the agents claim. He stands outside the periphery of our Nevada courts’ jurisdiction and pulls the strings which he hopes will control the effective exercise of that jurisdiction. The trial court, in which the executive privilege is claimed, has the right to pass upon the claim of the privilege and the extent to which it will be allowed in protecting the secrets, security and interest of the United States. United States v. Reynolds, 345 U.S. 1 (1953); N.L.R.B. v. Capitol Fish Co., 294 F.2d 868 (5 Cir. 1961). Anything less would absolutely and surely frustrate the full exercise of a court’s power (the same rule should apply to both state and federal courts). A clearer example of frustration of a court’s process cannot be suggested where, as here, it has the necessary parties before it.
In this case we need not and, in fact should not, be concerned with the question of why the attorney general silenced the agents, or whether or not eavesdropping by F.B.I. agents has become a matter of public knowledge, or whether there was or was not illegal electronic surveillance, nor even whether or not, without lawful sanction, eavesdropping is an intrusion into a constitutionally protected area of the right of privacy, and a violation of constitutional guarantees.
The writer of the principal opinion discusses matters well outside the question of whether or not the trial judge had the right to look behind the claim of executive privilege. An examination of the extent of the trial court’s action is beyond the scope of this review. We are not here concerned with the depth of the trial court’s inquiry, but only with whether or not the decision of the trial judge was within the realm of his jurisdiction. His decisión was clearly within his jurisdiction and the application for a writ of prohibition is properly denied.
Mowbray, J., being disqualified, the Governor designated Honorable Howard W. Babcock, of the Eighth Judicial District Court, to sit in his place.