A Missouri judge who locked two children in jail cells because he was frustrated by their resistance to a parental custody decision is liable for violating their Fourth Amendment rights, a federal appeals court ruled this week. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit rejected Taney County Judge Eric Eighmy's claim that he was shielded by qualified immunity, a doctrine that blocks federal civil rights claims unless they allege a violation of "clearly established" law.

"A reasonable judge should have known better," Judge David Stras writes in an opinion joined by the two other members of the 8th Circuit panel. "The law was 'clearly established' enough" to "place the issue 'beyond debate.'"

Institute for Justice attorney Dylan Moore, who wrote an 8th Circuit brief arguing against immunity for Eighmy and participated in oral arguments, welcomed the decision. "Every reasonable person knows that a judge can't throw children in jail for no good reason," he said. "Yet Judge Eighmy claimed qualified immunity shielded him from accountability anyway because no prior case told him that imprisoning innocent kids is unconstitutional. That defense is ridiculous, and we are thrilled that the court saw through it. When government officials commit such obvious constitutional violations, qualified immunity should never enter the picture."

The incident at the center of the case happened after an October 2019 custody hearing involving Kadan Rockett, then 14, and his 12-year-old sister, Brooklyn, who had achieved a modicum of fame as magicians performing on America's Got Talent. Their divorced parents, Bart Rockett and Kami Ballard, agreed that Ballard, who at that point lived in Missouri, would have primary custody of the children, while Rockett, who was living in California, would be "responsible for them at the beginning of each month and 'during TV pilot season.'" But Kadan and Brooklyn did not want to go home with their mother, which led to an argument in the lobby of the courthouse.

Eighmy intervened, telling Kadan and Brooklyn to come with him to a conference room, where he informed them that they had to leave with Ballard. "The children would not budge, even after the judge mentioned that the other option was foster care," Stras notes. "Frustrated, Judge Eighmy had the children follow him again, this time to a waiting area in the courthouse's juvenile division." A few minutes later, Eighmy "led them down a hallway to two holding cells."

Outside the cells, Eighmy again threatened Kadan and Brooklyn with foster care, but they were still unmoved. "Lock them up," the judge told an officer, who "patted them down and ordered them to remove their socks and shoes" before confining them in separate cells.

It is not clear exactly how much time Kadan and Brooklyn spent in the cells. The Institute for Justice says "about an hour," while Stras says "the time spent in the holding-cell area was between twenty and forty minutes." In any case, the children's respect for Eighmy's authority had improved by the time he came back. He "asked them one more time whether they would leave with their mother," Stras writes. "This time, they both nodded yes, so he let them go."

In June 2021, Rockett, the children's father, sued Eighmy on their behalf under 42 USC 1983, which authorizes claims against state or local officials who violate constitutional rights under color of law. In his motion to dismiss the lawsuit, Eighmy argued that he was protected by judicial immunity, which is absolute with respect to a judge's official duties. U.S. District Judge Douglas Harpool disagreed, and the 8th Circuit affirmed that ruling in 2023, noting that Kadan and Brooklyn were beyond Eighmy's contempt power because they were not parties to the custody case and that "judges do not do double duty as jailers."

Eighmy reiterated his judicial immunity claim in a motion for summary judgment, and Harpool rejected it again. After the trial began, Eighmy claimed qualified immunity twice, once after all the evidence had been submitted and again after the jury's verdict in favor of Kadan and Brooklyn. Harpool denied him that defense both times.

The jury ultimately awarded Kadan and Brooklyn $5,000 each in damages, and Harpool added about $327,000 in attorney fees. Eighmy appealed again, reiterating his judicial immunity claim. But the appeals court ruled that he had abandoned that argument by failing to raise it during the trial or after the verdict. So Eighmy was left with qualified immunity, which the appeals court said he did not deserve.

Eighmy clearly violated the Fourth Amendment's prohibition of unreasonable seizures, Stras says, because he "did not have 'probable cause to believe that [the children had] committed' an offense, much less one that justified placing them in a holding cell. Rather, their only misdeed was one every parent knows well: resisting authority. Even in the context of legal-custody proceedings, refusing to leave with a parent is not a jailable offense. Nor were there 'exigent circumstances' arising out of danger to themselves or others."

Did Eighmy's authority as a judge give him extra leeway? Nope. "Criminal contempt was off the table because the children were neither parties to the custody case nor present inside the courtroom," Stras notes. "Nor could the power to punish a party for violating an injunction have provided the justification, given that Judge Eighmy never issued one."

Eighmy's motive for jailing the children does not change that analysis. "We have no doubt that Judge Eighmy believed he was acting in 'good faith,' and possibly even in the children's best interests, by detaining them," Stras writes. "But good faith in the Fourth Amendment context is about reasonable reliance, either on binding appellate precedent or a warrant issued by a 'neutral magistrate.'"

What about Eighmy's argument that he had no way of knowing his actions were unconstitutional? "The law in this area" was "clearly established," Stras says. "'[I]t would have been sufficiently clear [to] every reasonable official,' Judge Eighmy included, that locking up two children for refusing to follow directions violated the Fourth Amendment. As we put it over a decade and a half ago, long before the events in this case, '[i]t is clearly established that a warrantless arrest, unsupported by probable cause, violates the Fourth Amendment."

That principle was so well established, in fact, that Kadan and Brooklyn, neither of whom had attended law school, took it for granted. "I don't know how you have a right to lock us up," Kadan told Eighmy when he threatened to jail them, according to Rockett's amended complaint. "We have done nothing wrong." The complaint says Brooklyn raised the same point. "How can you just lock up kids?" she asked. "This isn't legal. We've done nothing wrong."

Given Eighmy's obvious disregard for Kadan and Brooklyn's Fourth Amendment rights, "we are not concerned about the lack of a prior case" with "fundamentally similar" facts, Stras says. "Indeed, given how clear the law is, it would have been surprising to find one." He quotes an observation that Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch made as a 10th Circuit judge: "Sometimes the most obviously unlawful things happen so rarely that a case on point is itself an unusual thing."

The post The 8th Circuit Rejects Qualified Immunity for a Judge Who Jailed 2 Kids for 'Refusing To Follow Directions' appeared first on Reason Magazine.

Kimberly Guilfoyle today resigned from her position as the U.S. ambassador to Greece shortly after the White House confirmed that President Donald Trump had asked her to do so. The main provocation seems to have been Guilfoyle's alleged influence peddling, which reportedly featured a request that Republican donor Eric Deters pay off her $100,000 American Express bill, in exchange for which she promised him special access to "Trump world."

The president signaled his displeasure on Monday, saying "we're looking at" axing Guilfoyle, his son's former girlfriend, because "we're not happy." On Tuesday, Trump added that "we didn't like what we were reading." That reaction is not surprising, since Guilfoyle would have been horning in on Trump's territory by trying to sell access and use her office for personal gain. That's his thing.

Consider Trump's attempts to promote the memecoin that he launched three days before beginning his second term. That April, the top 220 $TRUMP holders were invited to "an intimate private dinner" with the president on May 22. The "top 25 coin holders" were promised "an Exclusive Reception before Dinner with YOUR FAVORITE PRESIDENT," plus a "Special VIP Tour" of the White House the next day. The coin's price, which after an initial surge had fallen dramatically since Inauguration Day, rose by more than 50 percent immediately after that announcement.

"Since the announcement, crypto investors around the world have raced to expand their holdings of $TRUMP," The New York Times reported 10 days before the dinner. "Certain buyers, in interviews and statements, have said they bought the coins or entered the dinner contest with the intention of securing an action by Mr. Trump to affect United States policy."

NBC reported that the coin investors who attended the dinner, which was held at the Trump National Golf Club in Sterling, Virginia, had collectively spent $394 million on $TRUMP. On average, that worked out to about $1.8 million a plate.

"This is my president that we're talking about, but I am willing to say that this gives me pause," Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R–Wyo.) said a few weeks before the dinner. "In abstract," Sen. Thom Tillis (R–N.C.) allowed, the event "is hard to understand." Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R–Alaska) drew an analogy: "I don't think it would be appropriate for me to charge people to come into the Capitol and take a tour."

Donald Sherman, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, was blunter. "This is one of the most blatant and appalling instances of selling access to the presidency I've ever seen," he said.

Compared to that episode, the controversy over the income that Trump's hotel in Washington, D.C., received from influence seekers during his first term might seem tame. But it raised similar ethical questions, albeit in a slightly more subtle way.

The Trump International Hotel's customers included Republican political organizations and a long list of trade groups, such as the National Mining Association, the Independent Petroleum Association of America, the National Confectioners Association, and the Vapor Technology Association, whose interests might be served by currying favor with the president. The hotel also attracted business from the governments of foreign countries, such as Kuwait, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Azerbaijan, Malaysia, and Romania, that likewise may have been investing in Trump's good will.

"Believe me, all the delegations will go there," a "Middle Eastern diplomat" told The Washington Post after Trump's election. "Why wouldn't I stay at his hotel blocks from the White House, so I can tell the new president, 'I love your new hotel!'" an "Asian diplomat" said. "Isn't it rude to come to his city and say, 'I am staying at your competitor'?" The Embassy of Kuwait, which had previously held its annual National Day celebration at the Four Seasons, reportedly canceled its reservation there and switched to the president-elect's hotel under pressure from the Trump Organization.

Trump saw no problem with any of this. "The law is totally on my side," he told The New York Times in November 2016. "The president can't have a conflict of interest." He reiterated that take at a press conference nine days before his inauguration. "I have a no-conflict situation because I'm president," he said.

Trump nevertheless said he would donate the profits from money spent by foreign governments at his hotels to the U.S. Treasury. But that solution did not address the money he was taking in from various domestic interest groups or his ability to enrich himself by encouraging Republican organizations or other federal officials to patronize his businesses.

One example of the latter: Vice President Mike Pence and his party stayed at Trump's golf resort in Doonbeg, Ireland, during an official trip in 2019. Although Trump insisted he "had nothing to do" with that decision, critics perceived a violation of the Domestic Emoluments Clause, which says the president may not receive additional compensation from the federal government beyond his official salary.

Trump later said he regretted his attempts to address conflicts of interest during his first term, including his promise that the Trump Organization would avoid new foreign business deals. "I prohibited [my sons] from doing business in my first term, and I got absolutely no credit for it," he told The New York Times 12 days before his second inauguration. "I didn't have to do that, and it's really unfair to them." The lesson he drew was that "nobody cared."

Consistent with that assessment, Trump has thrown all caution to the wind during his second term, capitalizing on his position to rake in millions of dollars by hawking all manner of presidentially branded merchandise, ranging from bibles to cologne; obtain a $400 million "palace in the sky" from the government of Qatar; extort $1 billion in pro bono legal work from disfavored law firms; earn billions from the same cryptocurrency industry he was simultaneously deregulating; and arrange a sweet IRS immunity deal that could save him more than $100 million in back taxes, interest, and penalties. Any worries about unseemly profiteering by Trump's family are long gone, as evidenced by federal contracts with businesses backed by his sons and highly lucrative foreign deals negotiated by his son-in-law.

Compared to all of that, the $100,000 that Guilfoyle allegedly sought in exchange for using her influence with the Trump administration to help Deters looks like pocket change. Her real sin, one suspects, was failing to offer her boss a piece of the action.

The post Trump Fired Kimberly Guilfoyle for Influence Peddling That Pales Next to His Presidential Profiteering appeared first on Reason Magazine.