To the Editor:

I want to echo a complaint against Judge Scott Hayes registered in a letter to the editor in The Fayette Advertiser earlier this year.

My issue with Judge Hayes occurred during my lawsuit against the Fayette School Board over the 4 day school week.  In a hearing at the end of the oral arguments, Hayes exploded with this rambling, factually incorrect statement:

“The Court recognizes Mr. Lehmann's opinions, does stress that most of everything said in argument is definitely something that's said outside the courtroom, on the steps of the courthouse.  However, inside the courtroom you're held to the standards of a lawyer....you have to have....somebody that can sit there and try to figure out why in the 

world the same Supreme Court in Plessy v. Ferguson said separate but equal is okay, and it took until the 1950's for Brown v. Board of Education to say, well, let's re-do it, let's change the law on that.  

“Completely off-base on that argument.  Just as much as you were off-base in saying that the knee is on the neck.  There's no place in the courtroom for a reference to George Floyd regarding your argument, because it's much more serious of a nature than that....but things like that seem minimized.  It's not minimized to the Court.”

[Fact check:  There are no published rules about language forms in the courtroom and I did not state “George Floyd” in my argument!].

One can see the complete personal distain for me as a non-attorney in his verbal attack on me.  In his written judgement, copied from the Board's attorney, full of inacturate and false statements, Hayes did not affirm one paragraph in the alleged facts in my petition and wrote off the  entire petition as opinion or without merit!  This included the standard paragraph where the petitioner identifies who they are and their credentials (as an educator in my case).

Judge Hayes has acted as a prejudiced bully in the controled court room space where judges are essentially dictators by design.  He showed no respect for me as a person. 

I have heard stories about and from non-statused parties appearing before Judge Hayes who were verbally excoriated for doing or not doing something related to their case.

As with school boards, judges have immunity from accountability for abusive behavior and for making inappropriate decisions that can hurt people.  The only check left by the public is to not check the ballot box for Judge Hayes or do a write-in, and diminish his mandate totals! 

Sincerely, 

Paul Lehmann, Educator