Senate Impeaches Judge Nixon on Perjury Conviction

The Senate Friday removed U.S. District Judge Walter L. Nixon of Mississippi from the bench on impeachment charges stemming from a perjury conviction.

Nixon was the second judge in two weeks removed from office through impeachment.

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 annual salary and saying he would like to return to the bench to preside over trials.

“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 became the seventh official ever removed from office through impeachment and the third judge in the last three years.

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