Senate Declares Claiborne Guilty, Orders His Ouster

The Senate today found imprisoned federal Judge Harry E. Claiborne guilty of “high crimes and misdemeanors” by willfully filing a false income tax return and ordered him removed immediately from office.

The vote was 87 to 10 on the first of four impeachment articles against Claiborne. Approval of a single impeachment article is sufficient for conviction.

The verdict made Claiborne the first official in 50 years to be impeached by the Senate.

Claiborne, who is serving a two-year prison sentence for tax evasion but had refused to resign, sat in the well of the Senate chamber for the historic roll call that climaxed a 10-day impeachment trial before a special Senate panel and then the full Senate.

Will Forfeit Salary

The Senate’s verdict means that Claiborne will be ousted immediately as chief U.S. district judge for Nevada and will forfeit the $78,700 salary he had continued to collect while imprisoned at Maxwell Air Force Base, Ala.

The climactic Senate vote on the first of four impeachment articles against Claiborne--approved unanimously by the House on July 22--came after several hours of closed debate.

Under the Constitution, a two-thirds majority of senators present and voting was required to find Claiborne guilty of “high crimes and misdemeanors” and to remove him from office.

Throughout his trial, Claiborne claimed that he was the innocent victim of careless errors by his tax preparers and a government vendetta that resulted in his 1984 criminal conviction for tax evasion.

High Court Rejected Appeal

Right up to the Senate vote, Claiborne’s lawyers had fought a losing battle all the way to the Supreme Court to halt the impeachment proceedings on the ground that his constitutional right to a “full and complete trial” before the Senate had been violated.

But the U.S. District Court here ruled that the judicial branch had no right to interfere with a Senate impeachment trial, an opinion upheld by a special, three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals.

Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist quickly rejected Claiborne’s appeal without comment.

Claiborne has lost every appeal of his 1984 conviction, and the Senate’s verdict cannot be appealed in any court.