Impeached Judge Gets OK to Practice Law
Former U.S. District Judge Walter L. Nixon Jr., who was impeached and disbarred for perjury, can return to work as a lawyer in Mississippi, the state Supreme Court ruled Thursday.
Nixon, 64, was impeached by the U.S. House of Representatives and removed from office by the Senate in 1989. In 1986, he was convicted of lying to a grand jury when he denied discussing a marijuana case with a district attorney.
The state Supreme Court disbarred Nixon in 1989.
In its ruling Thursday, the justices said that Nixon has rehabilitated himself. “This petitioner has been whipped enough,” Chief Justice Armis Hawkins said.
The State Bar of Mississippi had opposed the reinstatement on the grounds that the perjury conviction showed bad moral character. But dozens of Mississippi officials, including three former governors and three former state Supreme Court justices, asked for the reinstatement.
“We’re very pleased to finally win one. I thought we should have won a lot of the battles before, but we didn’t,” said Nixon’s lawyer, Boyce Holleman.
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