Condemnation

Only by the rare and cumbersome process of impeachment by the House and conviction by the Senate can a U. S. judge be removed from the bench. The Constitution, under which such judges hold appointments "during good behavior," provides no middle course between complete guilt and complete vindication. Last week, however, the House of Representatives found a U. S. District Judge neither innocent enough for exculpation, nor guilty enough for impeachment. So the House resorted to an extra-constitutional process: Public Condemnation.

The judge was Grover M. Moskowitz of Brooklyn, who sits in the Eastern District of New York. Against him in the House last year had been filed impeachment charges. The most specific complaints were that, after his appointment, he had continued a business association, involving real estate, with his onetime law partner, which netted him $55,468; that he gave members of his old law firm bankruptcy receiverships which brought in $105,468 in fees. He was also accused of ''oppression, intimidation, gross abuse of discretionary powers."

For a year a House Judiciary subcommittee secretly sifted the charges, heard evidence. Judge Moskowitz continued to sit on the bench, hired John William Davis, onetime (1924) Democratic presidential nominee, to defend him. The subcommittee reported to the whole committee two months ago that it found insufficient grounds for impeachment, recommended a mild form of censure. Particularly dissatisfied with this finding was New York's Congressman Fiorello Henry LaGuardia, a Judiciary committeeman who has been acting like a watch dog of the U.S. Judiciary (TIME, March 24). Congressman LaGuardia, passionately pleading for 100% judicial purity, was largely responsible for the committee's shift from mild censure to severe condemnation. Unanimously last week the Judiciary Committee recommended and unanimously the House voted this resolution upon Judge Moskowitz: ''Sufficient facts have not been presented to warrant . . . impeachment by the House. . . . The action of Judge Moskowitz, from the whole of the testimony, is not only not to be endorsed but is deserving of condemnation as unethical and dangerous and threatening the destruction of the confidence of the bar and the community in the court and calculated to bring it into discredit."

Congressman LaGuardia was joined by Representative Hatton W. Sumners of Texas, No. 1 Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, in the minority view that "the evidence would justify a resolution of impeachment."

While the local press clamored for his resignation on moral if not legal grounds, Judge Moskowitz declined to be shamed off the bench. Unabashed, he let Attorney Davis speak for him:

"That finding is equivalent of a determination that he [Judge Moskowitz] has not done anything to forfeit his office. Criticism [i.e. condemnation by the House] was wholly unwarranted and undeserved. ... He will vindicate the virtual dismissal of the charges by performing his duties as a Federal judge ably, impartially and fearlessly during the years to come."

The boldness of this statement by Mr. Davis stirred resentment in Washington. Chairman Graham of the House Judiciary Committee declared that Mr. Davis should ''be grateful the matter did not result otherwise." Congressman LaGuardia warned: ''If there is a further display of arrogance. I will give all the details of the case to the House and, if anyone moves to reconsider the whole matter, perhaps someone will wish he had done less talking."

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