Judge Who Jailed Two Children After Custody Hearing Loses Appeal

A Missouri judge who had two children locked in courthouse holding cells after a custody hearing is not entitled to qualified immunity, the Eighth Circuit held on October 13, 2026, affirming $5,000 per child and a $326,637.22 fee award. Rockett v. Eighmy, No. 25-1664.

Information last verified on October 20, 2026. This is a developing story; we update it as the record changes.

Status: Decided. The Eighth Circuit filed its published opinion in Rockett v. Eighmy, No. 25-1664, on October 13, 2026, and the clerk entered judgment the same day. The clerk's judgment letter states that petitions for rehearing and rehearing en banc "must be received in the clerk's office within 14 days of the date of the entry of judgment," which put that deadline at October 27, 2026. We could not reach the appellate docket this run, so we cannot say whether any rehearing petition has been filed, and we are not describing the decision as final. Under Fed. R. App. P. 41(b) the mandate issues seven days after the time to petition for rehearing expires, or seven days after an order denying a timely petition, whichever is later, so on the ordinary schedule the mandate would not issue before early November. No amended or substituted opinion had been posted to the court's own opinion server as of October 20, 2026.

Jurisdiction scope: This article covers a published federal constitutional ruling from the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, which is binding precedent in Arkansas, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota and South Dakota. It is a Fourth Amendment decision about detaining children inside a courthouse. It is not a ruling about Missouri custody law, and it does not alter the custody statutes of any state. For the state-law side of custody itself, see Missouri Child Custody Laws.

What Happened

On October 13, 2026 the Eighth Circuit affirmed a federal jury's finding that Missouri state judge Eric Eighmy violated two children's Fourth Amendment rights when he had courthouse officers lock them in separate holding cells following a custody hearing. The panel of Circuit Judges Shepherd, Kelly and Stras, with Judge Stras writing, affirmed the district court's denial of qualified immunity, affirmed the jury's award of $5,000 to each child, affirmed a $326,637.22 award of attorney fees and costs, and dismissed the judge's second attempt at judicial immunity because he had not preserved it for appeal. The appeal, No. 25-1664, was submitted January 14, 2026 on review from the Western District of Missouri. The Institute for Justice and the National Police Accountability Project appeared as amici supporting the children.

The opinion states the result at the outset.

"The type of immunity has changed, but the outcome has not. See Rockett ex rel. K.R. v. Eighmy, 71 F.4th 665, 670-73 (8th Cir. 2023). 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." Rockett v. Eighmy, No. 25-1664, slip op. at 2 (8th Cir. Oct. 13, 2026)

The facts, as the court recited them from the trial record, are short. The children's parents had divorced in Missouri and initially stayed together so the two children, described in the earlier opinion as "aspiring stars," could pursue work in Los Angeles. They found some success, including an appearance on America's Got Talent, before the parents split up.

Their mother filed a petition for sole custody, and the case landed on Judge Eighmy's docket. At a hearing months later the children waited outside the courtroom while their parents negotiated. The parents agreed on primary custody for their mother, with their father responsible for them at the start of each month and "during TV pilot season."

Once the hearing ended, neither child was willing to leave with their mother. With an argument unfolding in the courthouse lobby, the judge walked over, introduced himself, and told the children to follow him to a conference room, where he told them they had no choice. A youth counselor reinforced the point by telling them they "ha[d] to listen to the judge." The children did not move, even after the judge raised foster care as the alternative.

The judge then had the children follow him to a waiting area in the courthouse's juvenile division and told someone to "[k]eep an eye on" them and "make sure they [did not] go anywhere." After a few minutes away he led them down a hallway to two holding cells. A second threat to place them in foster care made no difference, so he had a juvenile officer "lock them up." The officer patted the children down and ordered them to remove their socks and shoes. The judge stood by as the officer locked the doors.

He then took a seat in a nearby office. After what the opinion says "felt like forever," the officer opened the cell doors and the judge asked once more whether they would leave with their mother. Both nodded yes, and he let them go. The court recorded the total time in the holding-cell area as between twenty and forty minutes.

How the case reached the Eighth Circuit twice

The children's father sued in federal district court under 42 U.S.C. 1983, alleging, among other things, a violation of the children's Fourth Amendment rights. Judge Eighmy argued for judicial immunity on a motion to dismiss and lost, and on interlocutory appeal in 2023 the Eighth Circuit affirmed that ruling as to the courthouse detention, holding that the children were beyond his contempt power and that "judges do not do double duty as jailers." Rockett ex rel. K.R. v. Eighmy, 71 F.4th 665, 672 (8th Cir. 2023).

That 2023 decision split the case in two. The 2023 panel of Chief Judge Smith and Circuit Judges Stras and Kobes reversed as to a separate later episode, in which the judge issued a pick-up order that led Louisiana officers to place the children in a juvenile-detention center. Issuing a pick-up order was a judicial act he had jurisdiction to perform, so judicial immunity covered it, and the court remanded that claim for dismissal while sending the courthouse-detention claim on for further proceedings.

Back in the district court, Judge Eighmy raised judicial immunity again at summary judgment and lost, with the court finding that "genuine issues of material fact" remained for trial. He then sought judgment as a matter of law on qualified immunity twice, at the close of evidence and again after the verdict, and lost both times. The jury returned a verdict for the children, and after a supplemental instruction on damages awarded $5,000 to each child. The district court declined to reduce the verdict and added $326,637.22 in attorney fees and costs.

What the Law Actually Says

Two different immunities were in play, and the difference between them is the legal core of this case.

Judicial immunity is absolute, and it attaches to judicial acts. A judge who performs a function normally performed by a judge, within the jurisdiction of the court, cannot be sued for it even if the decision was wrong. That is why the 2023 opinion held the judge immune for issuing a pick-up order: ordering an officer to take physical custody of a child subject to a custody determination is something Missouri judges can do, and Missouri sets out a procedure for it. Under Mo. Rev. Stat. 452.885, a petitioner who has filed to enforce a custody determination may seek a warrant to take physical custody of a child, and the court may issue one on a finding that the child is likely to suffer serious imminent physical harm or removal from the state.

Qualified immunity is a different, narrower shield that applies to officials sued for conduct that is not covered by an absolute immunity. It asks two questions: did the official violate a constitutional right, and was that right clearly established at the time. If either answer is no, the official is not liable. In this case the Eighth Circuit answered yes to both.

The two immunities also travel on different procedural tracks, which is how the judge lost one of them without the court ever reaching its merits. More on that below.

The Fourth Amendment analysis turned on two questions: was there a seizure, and was it reasonable. On the first, the court held that ordering an officer to lock the children up "objectively manifest[ed] an intent to restrain" them, and that a reasonable person in that position would not have believed they were free to leave. The restrictions on the children's freedom of movement were, in the court's words, "tantamount to an arrest." Slip op. at 6. It made no difference that someone else physically closed the doors: the judge took the children there, gave the order, and waited nearby until they agreed to comply.

On reasonableness, the court held there was no probable cause to believe the children had committed any offense, let alone one that justified a holding cell, and no exigent circumstances involving danger to themselves or others. The opinion put the point plainly.

"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." Rockett v. Eighmy, No. 25-1664, slip op. at 7 (8th Cir. Oct. 13, 2026)

The court added that it had no doubt the judge believed he was acting in good faith, and possibly in the children's best interests. That did not change the reasonableness analysis, because good faith in the Fourth Amendment context means reasonable reliance on binding appellate precedent or on a warrant from a neutral magistrate, and neither was present. The court closed that part of its reasoning: "In short, rough justice does not trump the Constitution." Slip op. at 8.

A court's power to enforce a custody order is real, but it is bounded by the statutes that create it. The opinion identifies the specific boundaries that mattered. Missouri's contempt statute lets a judge punish "[d]isorderly, contemptuous or insolent behavior" only when it occurs "during [the court's] session, in its immediate view and presence." Mo. Rev. Stat. 476.110(1). The children were never parties to the custody case and were never inside the courtroom, so criminal contempt was off the table. No injunction had been issued, so the power to punish a party for violating one did not apply either. And a parenting plan is not a warrant: as the court put it, a custody plan allows a judge to issue a pick-up order under the Mo. Rev. Stat. 452.885 process, which is a different thing from detaining a child on the spot.

The 2023 opinion had already mapped a related line in the juvenile statutes. It read Mo. Rev. Stat. 211.131(1), which provides that taking such a child into custody is not an arrest, as describing something police officers may do and judges may not. What the statutes give a Missouri judge, the panel said, is the power to order a juvenile officer to carry out the duty set out in Mo. Rev. Stat. 211.401.1(3): to "[t]ake charge of children before and after the hearing as may be ordered by the court."

Because the ruling is federal constitutional law, it binds federal courts across all seven Eighth Circuit states even though those states' custody statutes differ considerably from one another. Readers comparing frameworks can look at Iowa's custody statutes and the rules Arkansas applies alongside Missouri's, and the broader state-by-state custody framework we track sets out how the best-interests standard and parenting-time rules vary.

Why the Judicial-Immunity Argument Was Dismissed Rather Than Decided

This part of the opinion is easy to misread, so it is worth being precise. The Eighth Circuit did not hold that judicial immunity was unavailable on the trial record. It held that it could not look at the question at all.

Judge Eighmy argued that new facts developed at summary judgment and at trial changed the judicial-immunity analysis. The court's answer was that he raised the argument at summary judgment, lost on a finding that material facts remained in dispute, and then dropped it. He had at least two further chances to raise it, at the close of evidence and after the verdict, and instead sought judgment as a matter of law only on qualified immunity.

Under Ortiz v. Jordan, 562 U.S. 180 (2011), an appellate court may not review the denial of an immunity defense at summary judgment after a full trial on the merits. The proper route is a motion for judgment as a matter of law under Fed. R. Civ. P. 50, followed by appellate review of the denial of that motion. Because the district court never got the chance to rule on judicial immunity with the full trial record in front of it, the appeals court was "powerless to review" the question. Slip op. at 5.

The court also rejected the argument that this was a "purely legal" question it could reach anyway. That exception covers disputes about the substance and clarity of pre-existing law, not requests to revisit whether facts were once genuinely in dispute.

Qualified immunity ran the opposite way. The judge did not raise it in his motion to dismiss or at summary judgment, but he did pursue it at trial and after judgment, which preserved it. The court therefore reviewed the denial of judgment as a matter of law de novo, viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the jury's verdict.

That posture is worth holding onto. The appellate court was not deciding, on a paper record, whether the children's account was true. The jury had already found the facts, and the court was asking whether, on those facts taken most favorably to the children, the judge was entitled to qualified immunity as a matter of law.

Why the Court Held the Law Was Already Clearly Established

The second qualified-immunity question is often the decisive one, because it demands precedent specific enough to put the conduct beyond debate. Here the court held the law was clear without any closely analogous case.

Its reasoning was that the governing principle is old and broad: a warrantless arrest unsupported by probable cause violates the Fourth Amendment, a rule the circuit had already described as clearly established well before these events. The court cited Baribeau v. City of Minneapolis, 596 F.3d 465, 478 (8th Cir. 2010), for that proposition. It added a see-cite to Davis v. Dawson, 33 F.4th 993, 998 (8th Cir. 2022), for the point that outside a few narrow exceptions there are centuries of precedent behind the principle that seizures are reasonable only when supported by probable cause.

The court then addressed the absence of a case on all fours, citing Hope v. Pelzer, 536 U.S. 730, 741 (2002), for the proposition that no "fundamentally similar" prior case is required, and District of Columbia v. Wesby, 583 U.S. 48, 64 (2018), for the "rare 'obvious case'" where unlawfulness is clear even without closely analogous precedent. It quoted then-Judge Gorsuch's observation that "sometimes the most obviously unlawful things happen so rarely that a case on point is itself an unusual thing," and said that given how clear the law is, finding such a case would have been surprising. Slip op. at 8-9. The court concluded that the law was clearly established enough to place the issue beyond debate. Slip op. at 9.

A footnote addressed a related point. Even though the judge exceeded his powers, he still acted "under color of state law" for purposes of 42 U.S.C. 1983, because purporting to act with state authority is enough. The court observed that if he were not a judge, it is doubtful anyone in the courthouse would have followed his order to lock the children in holding cells.

The $5,000 Verdict and the $326,637.22 Fee Award

The damages history is unusual. The jury first found the judge liable but awarded no damages at all. The district court treated that as an inconsistent verdict, because the instructions listed damages as an element, and sent the jury back with an instruction to reconsider, telling it that even one dollar would do if it thought the children's damages had no monetary value.

Both sides had asked for something else. The judge wanted a defense verdict based on the zero-damages finding; the children asked the court to award nominal damages itself. The court chose resubmission instead, which Fed. R. Civ. P. 49(b) permits when a jury's answers are inconsistent with its general verdict, and the Eighth Circuit reviewed that choice only for abuse of discretion.

The jury then returned $5,000 for each child. The judge argued the award should be cut to a nominal $1. The appeals court held the district court was within its discretion to refuse, because the supplemental instruction did not force a choice between no damages and nominal damages. It left open a third option consistent with the liability finding, namely actual damages. The court also noted that the judge's counsel had told the district court they were fine with the instruction as given, which waived any objection to it.

On fees, 42 U.S.C. 1988(b) allows a court in its discretion to award a prevailing party in a section 1983 case "a reasonable attorney's fee as part of the costs." The same subsection carries a proviso for judicial officers: one sued "for an act or omission taken in such officer's judicial capacity" is not liable for costs or fees "unless such action was clearly in excess of such officer's jurisdiction." The opinion does not discuss that proviso. The 2023 decision in this litigation had already held that personally jailing the children was not a function normally performed by a judge. The district court used the lodestar method, multiplying hours reasonably expended by a reasonable hourly rate, after reducing the rates the children's attorneys had proposed, then cut a flat 10 percent to account for the lower-than-expected damages and the claims on which the children did not succeed.

The Eighth Circuit acknowledged that $326,637.22 looks large next to the $10,000 the jury awarded. It affirmed anyway, noting that this was a hotly contested case involving two types of immunity, that success in a civil-rights case is only partly measured in money, and that lodestar calculations do not require rigid proportionality. Slip op. at 11-12.

The formal disposition is narrower than a flat affirmance: "We accordingly dismiss the appeal in part and otherwise affirm each of the judgments of the district court." Slip op. at 12. The dismissed part is the judicial-immunity question.

Analysis: Why This Matters

The following is analysis from the Recording Law Editorial Team.

The legal content of this decision is narrower than the headline suggests, and the narrowness is the interesting part. The court did not create a new rule about judges, and it did not hold that judicial immunity is unavailable for enforcing custody orders. It applied a very old Fourth Amendment rule to conduct it treated as plainly outside any judicial function: physically confining two non-parties in cells because they would not comply with an instruction.

What makes the opinion notable is where it placed the conduct. The 2023 decision had already held that personally escorting children to a cell is not a judicial act, which is what pushed the case out of absolute immunity and into the ordinary qualified-immunity framework that applies to police officers and other officials. Once there, the analysis looked like a standard unlawful-arrest case: no probable cause, no court order, no exigency, therefore an unreasonable seizure.

The "obvious case" reasoning is the part lawyers will read closely. Qualified immunity often turns on whether a prior decision addressed sufficiently similar facts, and that requirement is frequently what decides these cases. Here the court held the requirement was satisfied by the general rule alone, because the conduct was obviously unlawful and the rarity of a matching precedent is a consequence of that obviousness rather than a defense to it. That reasoning rests on Supreme Court authority in Hope v. Pelzer and Wesby, and this opinion is a concrete application of it.

The preservation holding is the quietest and possibly the most consequential piece. A litigant who loses an immunity ruling at summary judgment and then goes to trial has to renew the argument under Rule 50 to keep it alive. Judge Eighmy pursued qualified immunity at trial and after judgment, which preserved it even though he had not raised it earlier. He did not do the same for judicial immunity, and the result is that the stronger of the two immunities was never evaluated against the trial record. That is a procedural rule, not a statement about the merits, and the opinion is careful to say so.

The fee award also deserves a note on its own terms. A $10,000 verdict producing a $326,637.22 fee award is the sort of ratio that draws objections, and the court addressed it directly: the lodestar method does not scale fees to damages, and a civil-rights case that forces two rounds of appellate immunity litigation is expensive to try regardless of the sum at stake. For claims where the constitutional injury is real but the measurable loss is small, which describes many short-duration detention cases, the fee-shifting statute is the mechanism that makes the claim practical to bring at all.

One last point about scope. This is a Fourth Amendment decision, and it says nothing about how custody disputes should be decided or what a parenting plan should contain. Immunity doctrine in family proceedings is its own thicket, and a state court can reach a different result on a different immunity question, as a Washington ruling on immunity for a guardian ad litem illustrates.

How This Affects You

This section is general information about what the law provides. It is not advice about any particular family's situation.

A child's refusal to go with a parent at a custody exchange is, in the first instance, a state-law problem handled by the court that issued the custody order. State custody statutes and parenting plans set out the enforcement tools available, and those tools generally run through the court rather than through on-the-spot action: motions to enforce or modify, contempt proceedings against a party, and in some states a statutory order directing an officer to take physical custody of a child. Missouri's version of that last tool, Mo. Rev. Stat. 452.885, requires a filed enforcement petition, a sworn application, and a judicial finding about imminent harm or removal from the state before a warrant issues.

What the Eighth Circuit addressed is narrower than any of that. It held that in the seven states within its jurisdiction, confining a child in a holding cell because the child refused to leave with a parent after a custody hearing is an unreasonable seizure under the Fourth Amendment when there is no court order, no probable cause and no exigent circumstance. The opinion states that refusing to leave with a parent is not a jailable offense, including in the context of legal-custody proceedings. Slip op. at 7.

Courts have also drawn a line between what a judge may order and what a judge may do personally. The 2023 opinion in this same litigation held that judges may order an officer or bailiff to escort an unruly litigant to jail, but that personally escorting children to a cell and standing by while they were processed fell outside the judicial function, and that contempt power under Mo. Rev. Stat. 476.110(1) reaches only behavior occurring during a court's session and in its immediate view and presence.

Nothing in this decision tells any parent or child what to do, and nothing in it establishes that a given set of facts would support a claim. Qualified immunity is decided case by case on specific facts, section 1983 litigation involves filing deadlines and immunity defenses that vary by jurisdiction, and the enforcement options in a live custody dispute depend on the governing order and the state's statutes. Anyone with a concrete question about a custody order or about conduct in a courthouse should speak with a lawyer licensed in their state.

This is general legal information, not legal advice. It covers a federal constitutional ruling binding in the Eighth Circuit states of Arkansas, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota and South Dakota, and it reflects sources verified on October 20, 2026. Laws change, this story is developing, and the rehearing window in this case was still open as of that date. Consult a lawyer licensed in your jurisdiction about your specific situation.

Related articles

• Child Custody Laws by State
• Missouri Child Custody Laws
• Washington Guardian ad Litem Immunity
• Traveling With a Minor: Consent Letters, Passports and Custody

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Last updated: 2026-10-20. This is a developing story; details verified as of 2026-10-20.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can a judge jail a child for refusing to leave with a parent after a custody hearing?

The decision did not involve a visitation exchange; it involved children who refused to leave with their mother after a custody hearing. In the Eighth Circuit, the October 13, 2026 ruling in Rockett v. Eighmy holds that locking children in courthouse holding cells because they refused to leave with a parent after a custody hearing is an unreasonable Fourth Amendment seizure where there is no court order, no probable cause and no exigent circumstance. The opinion states that refusing to leave with a parent is not a jailable offense, even in the context of legal-custody proceedings.

What happens if my child refuses to go with the other parent?

That is a state-law question for the court that issued the custody order, and the answer depends on the order and the state's statutes. Enforcement generally runs through the court rather than through immediate detention: motions to enforce or modify, contempt against a party, and in some states a statutory warrant directing an officer to take physical custody of a child. This is general information, not advice about any particular case.

What is the difference between judicial immunity and qualified immunity?

Judicial immunity is absolute and covers judicial acts performed within a court's jurisdiction, so a judge cannot be sued for them even if the decision was wrong. Qualified immunity is narrower and applies to officials sued for conduct not covered by an absolute immunity; it asks whether a constitutional right was violated and whether that right was clearly established at the time. In Rockett v. Eighmy the court answered both qualified-immunity questions against the judge.

Did the Eighth Circuit take away judicial immunity for judges?

No. The court dismissed the judicial-immunity portion of the appeal on preservation grounds rather than deciding it, because the judge abandoned the argument after summary judgment instead of renewing it in a Rule 50 motion, leaving the appellate court powerless to review it under Ortiz v. Jordan, 562 U.S. 180 (2011). An earlier 2023 ruling in the same case had held judicial immunity did not cover personally jailing the children, while it did cover issuing a pick-up order.

How much did the court award in Rockett v. Eighmy?

The jury awarded $5,000 to each of the two children on their Fourth Amendment claims, for $10,000 in total, and the district court added $326,637.22 in attorney fees and costs under 42 U.S.C. 1988(b). The Eighth Circuit affirmed both awards on October 13, 2026.

Which states does this ruling bind?

The Eighth Circuit covers Arkansas, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota and South Dakota, so the decision is binding federal precedent in those seven states. It is a Fourth Amendment holding and does not change any state's custody statutes.

Can a Missouri judge order a child to be picked up?

Missouri provides a statutory process. Under Mo. Rev. Stat. 452.885, a petitioner who has filed to enforce a child-custody determination may submit a sworn application for a warrant to take physical custody of a child, and the court may issue one on a finding that the child is likely to suffer serious imminent physical harm or removal from the state. The 2023 Eighth Circuit opinion in this litigation held that issuing such an order was a judicial act covered by absolute judicial immunity.