Judge who jailed, threatened children should be held accountable
Dan King and Tori Clark
Any parent would want to hold someone accountable if that person put their children in “cold, smelly” jail cells. But if that person happens to be a judge, it can be incredibly difficult to do so. A case in front of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit last week could help make it clear, however, that even judges aren’t above the law.
In 2019, the parents of child stars Kadan and Brooklyn Rockett from the show America’s Got Talent were in a custody dispute in Missouri. After the two children refused to go home with their mother, Taney County Judge Eric Eighmy attempted to persuade them to do so. When they still refused, Eighmy forced the children to take off their shoes, socks, and jackets and threw them in jail cells for about an hour. He then threatened to put them in the foster system if they still refused to go home with their mother. As any scared children would do, Kadan and Brooklyn caved to Eighmy’s demand.
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Several months later, the children moved with their father to Louisiana. After the mother filed a motion with the court, Eighmy ordered Louisiana police to pick up the children. When the children again objected, the officers cuffed them and brought them to the police station, where their mother was waiting. An argument ensued between the children and their mother, who attempted to drag Brooklyn out of the station. Following the argument, police took the children to a juvenile detention center, where they were strip-searched and put in separate solitary-confinement cells for two days. All of this was done despite the fact that Eighmy didn’t have jurisdiction.
When the father attempted to sue Eighmy for violating the children’s First, Fourth, and Fourteenth Amendment rights, Eighmy attempted to have the case dismissed by arguing he was entitled to judicial immunity. The doctrine of judicial immunity is supposed to protect judges, acting within their official capacity, from lawsuits for making honest legal mistakes. Over the years, however, that doctrine has been expanded to cover even egregious actions by indisputably bad actors. The Missouri federal trial court denied Eighmy’s attempt to throw out the suit, concluding that he was acting outside of his judicial capacity and beyond his jurisdiction. Eighmy is now appealing this decision to the Eighth Circuit.
Our law firm, the Institute for Justice, filed an amicus brief and participated in an oral argument to urge the circuit court to uphold the lower court’s decision to deny judicial immunity for Eighmy’s actions. As IJ’s brief sets out, judicial immunity has existed for hundreds of years, but it has never granted blanket protection for the kinds of actions at issue here. Eighmy clearly violated the children’s constitutional rights, and he should not be able to hide behind an impervious shield merely because he happens to be a judge.
Judges across the country have invoked judicial immunity to shield themselves from liability for even egregious constitutional violations. For instance, in Raleigh County, West Virginia, a family-court judge stopped in the middle of a divorce-related hearing between Matt Gibson and his ex-wife and ordered everyone in the courtroom to meet at Gibson’s home. The judge then personally led a warrantless search party, including Matt’s ex-wife and her attorney, through Matt’s home and ordered the ex-wife to take anything she claimed was hers. Despite these obvious constitutional violations, the judge invoked judicial immunity to argue that she should not be held accountable for her actions. The trial court denied her immunity, but she is continuing to fight that ruling on appeal.
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Nobody should be above the law, including judges who are sworn to uphold and defend the Constitution. Eighmy’s actions clearly violated Kadan and Brooklyn’s rights. The children deserve their day in court, which is exactly what they’re asking the federal appeals court to give them.
Tori Clark is an attorney and Dan King is Communications Project Manager at the Institute for Justice