Judge Les Hayes once sentenced a single mother to 496 days behind bars for failing to pay traffic tickets. The sentence was so stiff it exceeded the jail time Alabama allows for negligent homicide reut.rs/2ZkVOjb 1/7 
Marquita Johnson’s three children were cast into foster care while she was incarcerated. One daughter was molested, another was physically abused 2/7
Fellow inmates found her sentence hard to believe. 'They had a nickname for me: The Woman with All the Days,’ Johnson said 3/7
In 2016, the state agency that oversees judges charged Hayes with violating Alabama’s code of judicial conduct. Hayes broke state and federal laws by jailing Johnson and hundreds of other Montgomery residents too poor to pay fines reut.rs/3i2VvC1 4/7
Even after Hayes admitted to violating 10 different parts of the state’s judicial conduct code he wasn’t fired. Instead, the judicial commission and Hayes reached a deal: An 11-month unpaid suspension before returning to the bench 5/7
This week, Hayes is set to retire after 20 years. His departure, community activists say, is long overdue 6/7
Hayes is just one example. Thousands of judges across the U.S. have been allowed to keep positions of extraordinary power and prestige after violating the law. Read the full investigation: reut.rs/2ZkVOjb via @johnshiffman @MJBerens1 7/7
