Missouri judge violated teens’ civil rights. Should he face more serious penalties? | Opinion
“You can’t lock up kids who’ve done nothing wrong,” St. Louis attorney Hugh Eastwood said in a recent telephone interview.
Most of us could agree with Eastwood’s assessment — a judge personally escorting children to a jail cell without probable cause is highly illegal. A jury in a federal civil rights lawsuit filed against Taney County Associate Circuit Judge Eric Eighmy certainly thought so.
The Taney County Courthouse is located in the southwest Missouri town of Forsyth, near Branson.
By placing Eastwood’s clients Kadan and Brooklyn Rockett behind bars himself, Eighmy violated the teen magicians’ Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable seizure, the jury found, according to court records.
Because of Eighmy’s willful disregard of the law, his ability to serve as an impartial arbiter of justice must be questioned. Missouri’s Commission on Retirement, Removal and Discipline should review the case. The way I see it, he should be removed from the bench.
Lips are sealed
In 2021, the teens’ father, Bart Rockett, filed a federal lawsuit against Eighmy alleging unreasonable seizure, free speech and due process violations.
The four-day trial held in the Southern Division of the United States District Court for the Western District of Missouri in Springfield recently concluded. A jury consisting of six women and two men sided with Eighmy on two of the claims made against him — free speech retaliation and a violation of the children’s due process rights.
Hardly anyone involved in this very public lawsuit — the case garnered international attention a few years back — returned calls or messages seeking comment.
Understandably, Eastwood said he would not make the siblings or their father available for interviews just yet.
“We still have some post-trial motions we need to get through,” he said.
Attempts to reach Eighmy and Taney County Presiding Judge Jeffrey Merrell for comment proved futile. Messages to both judges and the county circuit clerk were not returned.
In this lawsuit, Eighmy was represented by Attorney General Andrew Bailey’s office. An email message sent to a spokesperson for that office seeking comment was ignored.
Reached by telephone on Thursday, jury foreman Kenneth Appleberry of Republic, Missouri, declined to comment before ending the call.
“I have no comment on the case,” Appleberry said before hanging up.
Judge went beyond his duties
It’s not every day that a sitting judge is found guilty of violating the constitutional rights of anyone. However, a federal jury found Eighmy acted beyond the scope of his duties by personally placing the teens in jail.
Things came to a head in 2019 after a custody hearing in Taney County between the teens’ mother and their father, Bart Rockett, court records show. Although the former couple had reached a custody agreement, the teens did not want to relocate from Los Angeles to Utah where their mother lived and upend their burgeoning careers in Hollywood.
When the siblings refused to go live with their mother in Utah, Eighmy jailed them himself, according to court documents.
The next year, Eighmy ordered sheriff’s deputies to arrest Kadan and Brooklyn again while they were staying with relatives in Louisiana, because they didn’t want to live with their mother. While highly questionable, the jury found this heavy-handed approach legal, according to court documents.
Because Eighmy ordered the children arrested in his official duties as a judge, he was protected by qualified immunity and absolved of the free speech retaliation and due process claims, court records indicate.
For violating the teen’s Fourth Amendment rights, the jury ordered Eighmy to pay Kadan and Brooklyn $5,000 each in damages, according to court records. The monetary award pales in comparison to the ramifications of this case, according to Eastwood, one of three attorneys that represented the siblings’ family.
A precedent has been set here in Missouri, he said. A sitting judge cannot personally escort people to jail as Eighmy did and hide behind claims of immunity.
“This case is very important,” their attorney Eastwood said. “It will protect the rights of kids during divorce cases.”
Too bad it took years for the teens to find justice. Thanks to a federal jury, they finally have that closure.
Kadan is now 19 and Brooklyn is 17. In 2016, the siblings appeared together on “America’s Got Talent” and received praise from hard-to-impress television personality Simon Cowell of “American Idol” fame. It is my hope that both these talented young magicians are afforded the right to continue their budding careers in show business.
But they never should have been arrested to begin with — let alone twice by a judge who acted way beyond his purview.
