The Nation - News from May 19, 1988

U.S. District Judge Alcee L. Hastings of Miami demanded that a House panel dismiss misconduct allegations brought by fellow judges after his acquittal on bribery conspiracy charges. “I am not guilty, but I am not free,” Hastings said at the start of impeachment hearings by the House Judiciary subcommittee on criminal justice. Hastings, who was nominated for the federal bench by President Carter in 1979, was acquitted in 1983 of conspiring to solicit a $150,000 bribe from two convicted racketeers in exchange for a promise of lenient sentences. But a five-judge panel of the U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta concluded after an investigation that there was “clear and convincing evidence” that Hastings had engaged in a bribery conspiracy.