The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled against a man who sued investigators and prosecutors in Meade County.
Oakley Engesser served 12 years in prison before being exonerated by witnesses who were not brought to trial to testify.
Engesser says the investigation and prosecution were so flawed that they violated his constitutional rights. But the Eighth Circuit disagrees.
Oakley Engesser was convicted in 2001 of vehicular manslaughter. He was accused of driving the red Corvette owned by Dorothy Finley, who years later was determined to be the driver.
Finley was killed when the speeding car crashed into another vehicle on Interstate 90 near Sturgis and rolled a number of times in the median.
At oral arguments in October 2020, Oakley’s lawyer, Steven Beardsley, tells Eighth Circuit judges that there were three witnesses at the scene who said a woman was driving, and eventually three more witnesses came forward.
He says Highway Patrol Trooper Edward Fox did not ask questions at the scene, and eventually investigators and prosecutors stopped looking for exculpatory evidence because they wanted to charge somebody, and Dorothy Finley was dead.
“So there’s no question, this isn’t just negligence. This isn’t just gross negligence. This is an absolute intent to indict somebody.”
But the attorney for Trooper Fox disagrees. Bob Morris tells judges that to establish a violation of substantive due process, they must find that Fox intentionally or recklessly failed to investigate.
“The threshold question for this court is whether the behavior of Ed Fox was egregious, outrageous, and as such could have been said to shock the contemporary conscience.”
The Eighth Circuit ruled on the side of the Highway patrolman and Meade County prosecutors. In its opinion, the appellate court noted that, quote, “A failure to ask the right questions and to reconcile inconsistent evidence may be shoddy police work, but in this case, it reflects nothing more than negligent or grossly negligent conduct.”
The appellate court upheld a lower federal court that granted summary judgment to the defendants.