Painful Duty

In drafting the Constitution, the Founding Fathers wrote a complex impeachment procedure for the removal of federal officials guilty of "high crimes and misdemeanors." The House was given the power to impeach and the Senate the power to try these cases. So much for the theory. In practice, Congress has never liked all the folderol, hoping the accused would be dealt with in some other way. Up to this year, the House has impeached only 13 men, not including Richard Nixon, who resigned in 1974 before his impeachment was acted on by the full House. Not since 1936, when the Senate tried and removed U.S. Judge Halsted Ritter of Florida for bringing his court into "scandal and disrepute," has a public official gone through the entire process.

Now comes a case that leaves Congress no alternative but to go through it again. The defendant is Harry Claiborne, 69, a federal judge from Las Vegas convicted in 1984 on two counts of tax evasion. In prison since May, he still collects his $78,000-a-year federal salary. If he is not removed by the Senate, he will be able to return to the bench once he finishes his two-year jail term.

Impeached by the House in July by a 406-to-0 vote, Claiborne headed for trial in the Senate. Preoccupied with tax reform and in no mood to waste precious time on the case, harried Majority Leader Bob Dole dusted off the Senate's rules of impeachment and invoked Rule XI. The procedure calls for the appointment of a special committee to hear the testimony in each case, then report back to the Senate.

Last week the committee opened for testimony. Impatience is already running high. A nine-member House team of "managers," or prosecutors, in the case, led by Judiciary Committee Chairman Peter Rodino, asked that the Senate find Claiborne guilty on the spot, using just the evidence that he is a convicted felon. Committee Chairman Charles Mathias of Maryland rejected that proposal.

The Senate appears to be adhering scrupulously to the details of the process, which are new to almost everyone involved. Claiborne is certainly not making it easier. Among other things, he has asked for the right to subpoena 66 witnesses, including the Chief Justice of the U.S. and the director of the FBI.

Although Dole hopes to expedite the case, a staffer believes the Senate could "be here at Christmas" if all Claiborne's requests are granted. Even so, it may not be another 50 years before the Senate goes through the ordeal again. At least two other federal judges, Alcee Hastings of Florida and Walter Nixon of Mississippi, could follow Claiborne into the impeachment labyrinth.