Estate of Nash v. Folsom, No. 22-2860 (8th Cir. 2024)
Annotate this Case
In this case, the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit considered an appeal by several Missouri public officials who were denied qualified immunity by a lower court regarding five claims arising from a murder prosecution. The murder case, involving Donald Nash who was eventually convicted for the murder of Judy Spencer, was reopened in 2007, 25 years after the crime occurred. The officials based their case on a theory that DNA evidence found under Spencer's fingernails belonged to Nash, which they asserted could not have remained present if Spencer had washed her hair after their last encounter.
Nash was convicted and spent 11 years in prison until the Missouri Supreme Court set aside his conviction in 2020. The charges were dismissed after DNA testing on the shoelace used to strangle Spencer supported Nash’s noninvolvement. Nash and his wife filed a lawsuit against the officials, claiming violations of rights including unlawful arrest and detention, fabrication of evidence, failure to investigate, violations of rights of access to courts, and violation of the right to familial and marital associations.
The Eighth Circuit affirmed in part, reversed in part, and dismissed in part the appeals on the denial of qualified immunity. The court held that the officials were not entitled to qualified immunity on the claim of unlawful arrest and detention, finding that the omission of certain exculpatory facts from the probable cause affidavit negated probable cause for Nash's arrest. However, the court reversed the denial of qualified immunity for the claim alleging violation of the right to familial and marital associations, as this was not a clearly established constitutional right in 2008. The court dismissed the officials' appeal on the remaining claims due to lack of jurisdiction, as these involved genuine disputes of material fact to be resolved by a jury.
Court Description: [Smith, Author, with Melloy and Erickson, Circuit Judges] Civil case - Civil rights. Nash was convicted of capital murder and spent 11 years in prison; he was released in 2020 after the Missouri Supreme Court set aside his conviction; later that year, the State dismissed charges against him because further DNA testing on the shoelace used to strangle the victim supported Nash's noninvolvement. He then brought this action against several Missouri public officials for their roles in his prosecution and conviction, asserting Section 1983 claims for unlawful arrest and detention, fabrication of evidence, failure to investigate, violations of his right of access to the courts, and violation of the right to familial and marital associations. The district court denied defendants' motions for summary judgment based on qualified immunity, and they appeal. (Nash passed away while this appeal was pending and his estate and personal representative were substituted.) Held: whether or not a particular theory of Nash's guilt (the "hair washing" theory regarding DNA samples) was recklessly included in the probable cause statement is a matter of fact that should be resolved at trial; however, the court does have jurisdiction to decide whether probable cause existed; five critical facts omitted from the search warrant application would have been critical to the probable cause determination, and recklessness may be inferred from their omission; thus the district court did not err in holding that a reasonable juror could conclude that the reconstructed affidavit (including the omitted facts) did not support probable cause; our cases show that omitting truthful evidence from a probable cause affidavit violated a clearly established constitutional right in 2008, and the district court did not err in denying the defendant officers qualified immunity on the Section 1983 claim for unlawful arrest and detention; with respect to the remaining counts: (1) at the time of the incident it was clearly established that fabrication of evidence to establish probable cause clearly violated a person's Fourteenth Amendment's due process rights; (2) an officer who intentionally or recklessly fails to sufficiently investigate an incident before making an arrest is not entitled to qualified immunity; (3) right of access to the courts was clearly established at the time of the incident; and (4) there is neither Supreme Court nor Eighth Circuit precedent for the claim that wrongful prosecution and incarceration violated a right to familial association, and the district court's denial of qualified immunity on this count is reversed. The court lacked jurisdiction to resolve the denial of qualified immunity on the remaining counts because they require the resolution of genuine issues of material fact. The court affirms the denial of qualified immunity on plaintiff's claim of unlawful arrest and detention; reverses the denial of qualified immunity on the claim for violation of the right to familial and marital rights; and dismisses the appeal from the remaining counts of the complaint for want of jurisdiction.
Some case metadata and case summaries were written with the help of AI, which can produce inaccuracies. You should read the full case before relying on it for legal research purposes.
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.