The Clash With Judge Richard Lee
In January 1981, then Ninth Judicial District Judge Richard E. "Dick" Lee, a Louisiana Democrat, ordered the state police to accompany three white girls to predominantly white Buckeye High School. Lee's order was aimed at thwarting Judge Scott's efforts to send the trio to the integrated Jones Street Junior High School in Alexandria.
Lee took custody of the three girls, instructed police to take them to classes, and warned school officials to treat them like any other students, or face jail and fines. Scott then threatened to impose a $500-a-day fine on anyone who disobeyed his decree that the girls must attend the Jones Street facility.
For weeks, Lee attempted to countermand every desegregation order issued by Scott. Finally, Scott slapped contempt charges against Lee but revoked them in a bid to end the dispute over which school the girls would attend. According to the New York Times, Lee accused Scott of "trying to blackmail me . . . I was a gentleman and did what I said I was going to do, and he backed out. He lied to me."
When the girls re-enrolled at Buckeye High School, Scott ordered that none of their credits could be accepted by the Rapides Parish school system. Therefore, the girls -- called the "Buckeye Three" -- by the media—switched parental custody so that they could attend the mostly white Buckeye school. The parents retained the influential Lafayette lawyer J. Minos Simon to represent them. In 2008, Lee, having left the bench, was chairman of the Rapides Parish Democratic Executive Committee.
The Rapides Parish case attracted national attention for several weeks, even drawing the eye of then CBS anchorman Walter Cronkite. Democratic Congressman Lawrence P. McDonald (1935–1983) of Georgia, filed an impeachment resolution against Judge Scott on February 5, 1981, on grounds that Scott had usurped local authority. McDonald, a member of the anticommunist John Birch Society, was killed two years later when the Soviet Union shot down the Korean Air Lines Flight 007 plane over the Kamchatka Peninsula. No hearings were held on McDonald's impeachment resolution against Judge Scott.
Read more about this topic: Nauman Scott
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