Judicial Panel Calls for House to Consider Impeaching U.S. Judge

A panel of 27 top federal judges, emerging from a closed-door meeting Tuesday, asked the House to consider the impeachment of U.S. District Judge Alcee L. Hastings, a jurist from Miami who was acquitted in 1983 of bribery charges.

The action by the Judicial Conference of the United States marks the second time that the panel has asked for the impeachment of a federal judge. But this case promises to be far more controversial than the first. Judge Harry E. Claiborne of Nevada, having been convicted of tax evasion, was impeached and removed from office last year.

Panel Assailed

Terence J. Anderson, Hastings’ attorney, issued a scathing attack on the judicial panel outside the Supreme Court building. He called it a “star chambers proceeding” that relied on “warmed-over circumstantial evidence.”

Hastings, a black appointed in 1979 by President Jimmy Carter and an outspoken critic of the Reagan Administration, has contended that the move against him is both racial and political.

Anderson also said that it is unconstitutional for the judiciary to seek the removal of one of its members.

“Today they have broken with a 200-year tradition,” said Anderson, a University of Miami law professor. “They are re-alleging the same arguments that a jury rejected.”

Hastings, who continues to hear cases and draw his $89,500-a-year salary, said in a statement he believes that the House will dismiss the charges against him.

Friend Convicted

Hastings’ close friend, Washington lawyer William Borders, was convicted in 1983 of having solicited a $150,000 bribe from two racketeers in return for a pledge from Hastings to reduce their sentences. But in a separate trial, the judge was found not guilty of conspiring to solicit the bribe.

Six weeks after the acquittal, two judges filed a complaint against Hastings, charging that he had fabricated his defense and lied under oath. A five-judge panel for the U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals spent three years investigating the charges, and in September, the conference of the appeals panel recommended impeachment. The Judicial Conference took up the complaint Tuesday.

Members of the conference include the chief judges of the 13 circuit courts and a top district judge from each region, and it is chaired by Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist.

The Judicial Conference was given new authority in 1980 to take action leading to the removal of judges, who have lifetime appointments. A spokesman for the group told reporters that the certificate sent to the leaders of the House and Senate on Tuesday “amounts to word from the Judicial Conference . . . to Congress that acts were committed which might warrant impeachment.” But for two abstentions, the vote was unanimous, he added.

Charges Not Spelled Out

But the panel did not actually “recommend” impeachment and did not spell out the charges against Hastings. Moreover, it has refused to release a 321-page report compiled by the appeals panel laying out the case against the Miami judge.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Peter W. Rodino Jr. (D-N.J.) said in a statement that a special panel of the committee “will carefully investigate and review the matter to determine whether impeachment proceedings should be undertaken by the House of Representatives.”

If the House impeaches Hastings, he would be tried by the Senate. Only five judges in U.S. history have been impeached and removed from office.