The Liberty Justice Center (LJC) launched a federal lawsuit today against Simpson County Judge Executive Mason Barnes, accusing him of trampling the First Amendment rights of a Kentucky whistleblower who exposed ethics violations in local government.
Filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Kentucky, Bowling Green Division, the case—Peyton v. Barnes—centers on Joel Peyton, a Simpson County resident whose online criticism was silenced after he uncovered corruption tied to Barnes and the county’s Industrial Authority.
The saga began in 2023 when Peyton, alarmed by a plan to buy farmland near his home for a warehouse project, teamed up with neighbors to dig into the deal.
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Through open records requests, they unearthed personal credit card misuse by the Industrial Authority’s director—revelations that forced the director’s resignation and scuttled the purchase. But Peyton didn’t stop there. He found that Barnes, a member of the Industrial Authority, had a hidden stake in another land deal: his construction company was tapped to build a house on a parcel sold by the Authority, with work starting before rezoning was finalized.
Barnes neither disclosed the conflict nor recused himself from the zoning vote.
Peyton filed an ethics complaint in June 2024. In January 2025, the Simpson County Ethics Board ruled Barnes had indeed breached the county’s Code of Ethics. Instead of owning up, Barnes struck back—blocking Peyton from his official social media page and blasting him in a post targeting complaint signers.
The LJC argues this retaliation is textbook viewpoint discrimination, illegal under the First Amendment, which the Supreme Court has ruled protects constituents’ rights to speak on officials’ public social media platforms.
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“Mason Barnes tried to discredit me and suppress my speech to cover up his own wrongdoing,” Peyton said. “Censoring me doesn’t erase what he did—it just piles on another violation. I’m thankful the Liberty Justice Center is stepping up.”
The lawsuit seeks a permanent injunction to stop Barnes from stifling online criticism, reinforcing that public officials can’t dodge accountability by hitting the block button.
“The Supreme Court’s clear: officials can’t silence critics on their public pages,” said Dean McGee, LJC’s Senior Attorney for Educational Freedom. “These platforms are today’s town square, and Barnes crossed a constitutional line.”
Local counsel Steven Megerle, a Covington-based attorney partnering with LJC, added, “Public officials can’t censor constituents, especially those brave enough to call out corruption. I’m thrilled to work with Liberty Justice Center to protect every citizen’s right to criticize their leaders online.”
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