A Missouri judge who ordered two children locked inside juvenile detention cells because they refused to leave a courthouse with their mother has been dealt a humiliating defeat in federal court.
On Tuesday, October 13, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit ruled against Missouri Circuit Judge Eric Eighmy, concluding that his outrageous handling of a family custody dispute violated the children’s clearly established constitutional rights.
The decision, written by Circuit Judge David Stras, upheld a jury’s $10,000 damages award to the children, along with a staggering $326,637.22 in attorney fees and costs.
And the reason for the children’s detention? They simply refused to leave with their mother following a custody hearing.
The parents and their attorneys reached a temporary agreement allowing the children to stay with their mother. However, Kadan and Brooklyn Rockett, who advanced to the semifinals of America’s Got Talent in 2016 with their jaw-dropping magic act and have appeared in Hollywood films, wanted to remain with their father to avoid disrupting their budding entertainment careers.
They were never parties to the case and never entered the courtroom. After the hearing, they argued with their mother in the courthouse hallway.
Judge Eighmy, according to the lawsuit and later findings, removed his robe, intervened, lectured the children on the “evils of Hollywood,” and grew frustrated when they stood firm.
He then personally escorted them to the juvenile detention division, stood by while they removed clothing and belongings, and had them locked in separate cells for roughly an hour.
He threatened to send them into foster care where they would never see their family again. Only after that pressure did the children agree to go with their mother.
The father sued under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for unreasonable seizure and related constitutional violations. Judge Eighmy claimed absolute judicial immunity, the powerful shield that normally protects judges from personal lawsuits even for erroneous or malicious decisions made in their judicial capacity.
The 8th Circuit, in an opinion by Judge David R. Stras joined by Chief Judge Lavenski R. Smith and Judge Jonathan A. Kobes, rejected that defense for the personal jailing.
In the 12-page ruling in Brooklyn Rockett and Kadan Rockett v. Eric Eighmy, Judge Stras wrote:
“When Judge Eric Eighmy had courthouse officers lock two children in holding cells because they refused to leave with their mother following a custody hearing, he violated their clearly established Fourth Amendment rights.”
The court rejected Eighmy’s qualified immunity defense and dismissed his renewed attempt to invoke judicial immunity on procedural grounds. An earlier Eighth Circuit decision had already rejected his judicial immunity argument concerning the detention.
Stras wrote that the children “were never parties, they never stepped foot in the courtroom, and Judge Eighmy personally locked them up himself. We have been unable to find any case that extends judicial immunity so far.”
The panel stressed that while judges may order an officer or bailiff to escort someone, “judges do not do double duty as jailers.”
Judges possess substantial authority to resolve legal disputes and enforce lawful court orders. But that authority does not give them unlimited power to personally detain people who frustrate them.
Stras delivered another memorable warning:
“In short, rough justice does not trump the Constitution.”
Personally marching the kids to cells, watching them strip down, and returning later to release them took any arguable judicial act “too far.”
After the children prevailed at trial, the jury awarded each of them $5,000 in damages.
The district court subsequently awarded another $326,637.22 in attorney fees and costs.
Eighmy challenged both awards.
The appeals court rejected those challenges, explaining that federal civil rights litigation does not require attorney fees to be proportional to the damages awarded.
The court also dismissed his renewed judicial immunity argument because he had failed to preserve it properly after trial.
The total judgment stands at $336,637.22.
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