What happened
The Eighth Circuit on Tuesday affirmed a Missouri federal judge's refusal to grant immunity to two Kansas City detectives and a prosecutor in Keith Carnes' civil rights suit over the murder conviction that kept him in prison for 18 years before Missouri's high court granted habeas relief.
Carnes alleges that detectives Robert Blehm and Avery Williamson and Prosecutor Amy McGowan helped build the case against him by fabricating or suppressing evidence and conducting a reckless investigation. The appeals court said the case can proceed at the summary judgment stage against the officers on the reckless investigation claim and against McGowan on immunity defenses tied to her alleged pre-probable-cause conduct.
The ruling leaves intact a district court order that had allowed a reckless investigation claim to proceed against Blehm and Williamson, a suppression claim to proceed against Blehm, and claims against McGowan despite her assertions of prosecutorial, qualified and Missouri official immunity. Carnes was convicted in 2005 of first-degree murder and armed criminal action in the killing of Larry White, then released after the Missouri Supreme Court found a Brady violation and the state dismissed the charges.
Writing for the panel, Judge Erickson focused on alleged contradictions between witness accounts and the physical evidence. The opinion said it was not enough to characterize the statements as minor inconsistencies, noting that an account of Carnes rolling White over and shooting him five more times at close range was "not a minor inconsistency."
The panel said a factfinder could view the detectives as reckless for uncritically accepting witness accounts that contradicted physical evidence, included verified falsehoods and conflicted with multiple other witnesses. The court also pointed to allegations that Lockett was under the influence during an interview and was coerced or coached to implicate Carnes.
McGowan fared no better on appeal. The court said factual disputes over whether she allegedly coerced witness Lorianne Morrow and suppressed or fabricated evidence before probable cause barred summary judgment on prosecutorial and qualified immunity. On Missouri official immunity, the panel said a prosecutor would know it was contrary to duty to suppress the killer's identity and frame another person, leaving a fact issue on malice.