The Eighth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decided that when Taney County Associate Circuit Judge Eric Eighmy personally walked two minors to jail, it was not a judicial function.
“There was a custody dispute going on before the judge between the parents and the judge was angry that the children didn't want to go with their mother that day,” said St. Louis-based attorney Hugh Eastwood.
The appellate court ruled that Eighmy cannot invoke judicial immunity as a defense in a federal lawsuit that the father, D. Bart Rockett, filed because the judge acted outside of his official duties.
Eastwood represents Rockett.
“That's just not what judges do,” Eastwood told the St. Louis Record. “That might be what jailers do pursuant to some sort of judicial process typically like a hearing and an order but the court said judges don't grab children and throw them personally in jail to teach them a lesson.”
The civil rights lawsuit was filed by Rocket in 2021 in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Missouri where Judge Douglas Harpool rejected Eighmy's claim of immunity.
The complaint alleged that placing Rockett’s two teens in jail for one hour, and then later in a juvenile-detention facility, violated their First, Fourth, and Fourteenth Amendment rights under the U.S. Constitution.
Eighmy, represented by the Missouri Attorney General’s office, appealed but the 8th Circuit largely agreed with Rockett.
Appellate judges in the unanimous ruling included Chief Judge Lavenski Smith, and Circuit Judges David Stras and Jonathan Kobes.
“Judges have the authority to order an officer or a bailiff to escort an unruly litigant to jail,” the June 22 opinion states. “They can also pull the parties into a conference room to discuss what just happened in court. Judge Eighmy crossed the line, however, when he personally escorted the kids to jail, stood there while they removed their clothes and belongings, and personally came back an hour later to release them.”
Missouri Attorney General counsel argued that Eighmy was within his scope of judicial duties, according to media reports.
“Judicial immunity does not turn on whether a judge followed every punctilio of procedure or even whether a judge acted properly and within his authority,” Eighmy's pleading states. “It turns on whether the judge acted like a judge.”
Once a mandate is entered in Rockett v. Eighmy, the district court will have a scheduling conference where discovery deadlines will be set.
"Our point is that there are custody disputes every day in courts throughout Missouri, and around the nation, and often children, particularly children over 11 and 13 years old may have their own wishes and preferences about which parent they want to go with," Eastwood added. "It's grossly inappropriate for judges to start jailing children to coerce them into spending time with a parent."