U.S. Senate Unseats Federal Judge Nixon : Impeachment: The convicted perjurer becomes the second judge removed from office in two weeks.

The Senate today removed U.S. District Judge Walter L. Nixon of Mississippi from the bench on impeachment charges stemming from a perjury conviction, making him the seventh official ever removed from office through impeachment and the second judge removed in two weeks.

With Nixon watching from his seat on the Senate floor, lawmakers sealed his fate by voting 89 to 8 to convict him on the first of three articles of impeachment. Senators quickly followed by approving a second charge, 78 to 19, but acquitted him on a third. The vote on that was 57 to 40, less than the necessary two-thirds of those voting.

Defense attorney David Stewart put his arm around Nixon as the secretary of the Senate read the names of senators voting guilty. The judge closed his eyes as the list grew longer and longer.

The 61-year-old Nixon was convicted of perjury in 1986 for lying to a grand jury about his unofficial talk with a prosecutor in a marijuana smuggling case. He served more than a year in prison and in recent weeks was moved to a New Orleans halfway house.

He has been collecting his $89,500 salary and saying he would like to return to the bench.

“We fought the fight for 5 1/2 years because we know we are not guilty of anything and we don’t feel like it,” Nixon told reporters outside the Capitol after the vote as he held hands with his wife, Barbara, and his daughter, Courtney.

“We can hold our heads high because we are innocent. . . . We have to go home and talk about things and get on with our lives,” he said.

Nixon was charged in the first impeachment article with lying to a federal grand jury in 1984 by saying that then-Dist. Atty. Paul Holmes of Forrest County, Miss., never discussed a drug smuggling case with him.

He was accused in the second article of lying to the grand jury by saying he was never involved in the marijuana smuggling case.

The final article accused him of lying to a Justice Department attorney and an FBI agent as well as to the grand jury. The charge said he “undermined the confidence in the integrity of the judiciary and disobeyed the laws of the United States.” On that article he was acquitted.

Before voting on the impeachment articles, senators rejected 90-7 a move by Nixon to bring witnesses to the Senate floor. They also turned down, 63-34, a Nixon request to drop one of the charges.

Throughout the case, Nixon said that witnesses against him lied and that overzealous prosecutors unfairly expected his grand jury testimony to be perfectly accurate.

Only two weeks ago the Senate ousted Alcee L. Hastings from the U.S. District Court bench in Miami.

Hastings was the first official ever removed through impeachment after being acquitted of the same charge in a criminal trial.