Peyton v. Barnes

The Liberty Justice Center filed a lawsuit to defend the First Amendment rights of a Kentucky whistleblower who exposed unethical behavior by a local government official, Simpson County Judge Executive Mason Barnes—then found himself blocked from commenting on Barnes’ official social media page.

In May 2023, Simpson County resident Joel Peyton learned that his local government Industrial Authority planned to purchase farmland near his home for a warehouse-building project. Mr. Peyton and a group of his neighbors opposed the project and began filing open records requests—discovering questionable credit card charges by the Industrial Authority’s director that eventually led to the director’s resignation and the abandonment of the land purchase.

Mr. Peyton also discovered that Simpson County Judge Executive Mason Barnes—a member of the Industrial Authority—stood to benefit personally from another deal negotiated by the Industrial Authority, as his own construction company contracted to build a house on a parcel that was sold by the Industrial Authority. Construction began on that parcel before the rezoning was complete—and during the formal vote on the zone change, Barnes failed to disclose his personal conflict of interest and did not recuse himself from voting.

In June 2024, Mr. Peyton and other residents filed an ethics complaint against Barnes. At a January 2025 hearing, the Board confirmed that Barnes had indeed violated the Simpson County Code of Ethics. Rather than take responsibility, Barnes retaliated—blocking Peyton from his official social media page and publicly naming him in a post attacking those who signed the complaint.

Because government officials’ social media pages qualify as public forums under the First Amendment, the Supreme Court has held that officials who block constituents or delete their comments have violated those constituents’ free speech rights and may be held liable for these violations in court.

On March 12, the Liberty Justice Center filed a lawsuit to challenge the free speech violations Mr. Peyton faced after exposing corruption in his local government. The lawsuit argues that by attempting to suppress information about his ethics violations and by blocking Mr. Peyton in retaliation for uncovering these ethics violations, Barnes engaged in illegal viewpoint discrimination in violation of the First Amendment.

The Liberty Justice Center’s lawsuit asks the court to grant a permanent order prohibiting Barnes from suppressing constituents’ First Amendment rights online again.

“Mason Barnes tried to discredit me and suppress my speech to cover up his own wrongdoing. But censoring me doesn’t erase anything he did—it just adds another ethics violation to his record,” said plaintiff Joel Peyton. “I am grateful to the Liberty Justice Center for taking on this fight.”

 “Judge executives, magistrates, and other public officials cannot censor their constituents, especially those with the courage to challenge their authority like Joel Peyton. I am excited to again serve as local counsel with Liberty Justice Center to ensure every citizen can compliment, criticize, and follow elected officials on social media as protected by the First Amendment,” said Steven Megerle, attorney and local counsel for Liberty Justice Center.

“The Supreme Court has made clear: public officials cannot block critics on their official social media pages. These platforms are the modern public square, and Barnes’s actions are a blatant First Amendment violation,” said Dean McGee, Senior Attorney for Educational Freedom at the Liberty Justice Center.

Peyton v. Barnes was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Kentucky, Bowling Green Division, on March 12, 2025.