‘Activist’ Judge Ends Bid for Federal Job

A controversial Philadelphia common pleas court judge who had used profanity on the bench and reportedly exposed undercover police officers in her courtroom withdrew her bid Monday to become a federal judge, one day before the Senate was poised to reject her.

Shortly before the Senate began debate on the nomination Monday afternoon, Frederica Massiah-Jackson sent a letter to the president saying she planned to withdraw. She said she had been a victim of “an unrelenting campaign of vilification and distortion.”

Massiah-Jackson, 47, might have become Clinton’s first judicial nominee to be turned down by the Senate. Although Senate conservatives often have complained of liberal judges and “judicial activists,” they have not voted down any of Clinton’s nominees.

As the year began, nearly one in 10 federal judgeships was vacant. Supreme Court Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist urged the senators to stop the squabbling and either confirm or reject the pending nominees.

One target of the attacks, Los Angeles lawyer Margaret Morrow, was brought up for a vote and won easy confirmation.

Attention turned to Massiah-Jackson after the Philadelphia District Attorneys Assn. denounced her as soft on crime and lacking the temperament to serve on the federal bench.

However, she had the support of the Philadelphia Bar Assn. If confirmed, she would have been the first black woman on the U.S. district bench in eastern Pennsylvania.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) said he turned against the nominee when he concluded she had not been candid with the committee.

She had denied exposing the undercover drug officers, but the senators were told she pointed to two officers in her courtroom and told the spectators to “take a good look at the undercover officers and watch yourselves.” The judge also admitted cursing at a prosecutor in her courtroom, although she later said she regretted it.

Hatch also recounted for his colleagues Massiah-Jackson’s role in a case in which a 13-year-old boy was dragged into some bushes near a city hospital, raped and stabbed. Two women said they saw a man emerging from the bushes, and they told hospital officials to call the police.

They identified the suspect after officers arrived. A rag with the bloody box cutter was found nearby. Massiah-Jackson suppressed the evidence and ordered the man released on the grounds the police did not have probable cause to arrest him, according to Hatch.

Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) called her withdrawal “the right decision.”