Judge Armstead Hayes III of Montgomery, AL; Judge Roy Bean Wannabee

The state of Alabama presented Armstead Lester Hayes III with a law license in 1983 after he graduated from the University of Alabama 6Law School.

FYI: Judge Roy Bean was an infamous Justice of the Peace and saloon owner in Texas who called himself the "The Law West of the Pecos." Roy was also affectionately referred to as the Hanging Judge.

President Obama was duped into appointing Amos to a judgeship on the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas. Amos didn’t get the appointment because he was the most qualified lawyer in the greater Sherman area. He got it because he had proven to be a reliable lackey for the local political hacks.

It should be noted that Amos has had his significant snout firmly planted in the public trough for twenty-four out of twenty-six years since he graduated from Baylor. Apparently, no self-respecting law firm in the greater Sherman area was about to offer Amos a good paying job.

The Alabama Judicial Inquiry Commission has charged Armstead with engaging in the following misconduct.

• ailed poor people to significant sentences because they couldn’t pay traffic fines
• Imposing high fines allowed Montgomery to collect millions in fees and fines that are three or more times the amounts collected in Birmingham and other large Alabama cities
• Failed to follow established constitutional and statutory law (due process)
• Failed to follow procedural law by revocation of probation
• Delegated judicial functions/authority to non-judicial, private entity
• Treated offenders with disrespect
• Failed to allow defendants a full and fair hearing
• Record keeping so deficient that it is impossible to glean which judge on what basis incarcerated non-paying offender on any given day
• Undermined public’s confident in impartiality of the judiciary
• Collected disproportionately large revenues from traffic court fines compared to the cities of Birmingham, Mobile and Huntsville
• With population of 2015,568, Birmingham collected $12.9 million in municipal court fines/costs from defendants while Birmingham with population of 242,820 collected $4.2 million
• Failed to afford offenders opportunity to explain why they hadn’t paid court fines
• Rarely made specific determinations under state law whether offender had ability to pay fines
• Numerous indigent offenders incarcerated for weeks or months at a time for their inability to pay their fines and costs
• No record available to establish that “Hayes’ compliance with the basic requirements of the law before jailing an offender for unpaid court-ordered financial settlements”
• As presiding Municipal Court judge, not only permitted illegal system to operate, but actively participated in its abuses

As a direct consequence of the charges lodged against him, the Alabama Court of the Judiciary ordered that Armstead be immediately suspended from the bench. All that remains now is to see what if any punishment is meted out to Armstead by the enablers for Judicial Misfits sitting on the Alabama Supreme Court.

As we speak (ca. November 2016), Armstead continues to sit as a Montgomery Municipal Court Judge in Montgomery, Alabama.