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By stan_sipple

Lee's Summit entrepreneur won a reversal of his child abuse conviction after six years and then sued the police detective and the businessman's ex-wife for violating his civil rights. Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals rules the plaintiff presented sufficient evidence to proceed with his Section 1983 case against the police detective and the ex-wife who turned on him. 071002P.pdf 01/30/2008 Theodore W. White, Jr. v. Detective McKinley

U.S. Court of Appeals Case No: 07-1002
and No: 07-1166
U.S. District Court for the Western District of Missouri - Kansas City
[PUBLISHED] [Smith, Author, with Bye and Bowman, Circuit Judges]
Incredibly the State of Missouri prosecuted the plaintiff three times on trumped up charges of child molestation, even after the prosecutor had learned the lead police detective on the case had developed a close personal relationship with the plaintiff's gold-digging ex-wife. During a discovery deposition the plaintiff took while his first trial was pending, the prosecutor and the detective agreed to a signal system to cue the detective how to answer any questions.

the prosecutor first learned that Tina and Richard were actually having an on-going romantic relationship, as opposed to just having gone on one date, when they announced their engagement. Prior to Richard's January 1999 deposition, the prosecutor told Richard that he would need to answer questions about the affair truthfully. The prosecutor said he would cough to signal to Richard when he needed to disclose the affair in response to a question. Richard was asked if he had any personal interest in the case, during a deposition, and he stated he did not. The prosecutor did not signal him to say otherwise. Consequently, White never learned of
Richard and Tina's affair before his first criminal trial.

Eighth Circuit finds sufficient evidence to proceed

Viewing the facts in a light most favorable to White, a reasonable juror could find that Tina and Richard reached a meeting of the minds to withhold exculpatory evidence from prosecutors and White. White offers evidence that Tina and Richard were romantically involved shortly after White was accused, and there is also evidence that Tina and Richard knew each other before the abuse allegations even surfaced.

Full post as published by Showmeblawgs on February 02, 2008 (boomark / email).