U.S. Judge’s Impeachment Considered

A House panel began hearings Thursday into whether to impeach a Mississippi federal judge now imprisoned on a perjury conviction. The judge, Walter L. Nixon, told the panel: “I have committed no crime.”

Nixon, 59, is serving a five-year prison term for his 1986 conviction of lying to a federal grand jury about his discussions concerning a drug case against the son of a business associate.

But Nixon told the House Judiciary subcommittee on civil and constitutional rights that he had done nothing to “call into question the integrity of the bench.”

Rep. Don Edwards (D-San Jose), the subcommittee chairman, said the panel would conduct “fair, open and complete hearings and will approach this matter with the seriousness and thoroughness required by the Constitution.”

In March, a group of judges that makes policy for the federal courts urged the House to consider impeaching Nixon. A few days later, a resolution was introduced in the House calling for Nixon’s impeachment for “high crimes and misdemeanors.”

Nixon has been a federal judge since 1968 and chief judge for Mississippi’s southern district since 1982. He has remained a judge and continues to receive his annual salary of $89,500. He would forfeit that salary and his eligibility for a pension at age 65 if he is impeached by the House and removed from office by the Senate.