A Judge Is Judged -- and Impeached

By Alain L. Sanders

The U.S. Constitution directs that federal judges "shall hold their Offices during good Behaviour." Last week the House of Representatives concluded that the behavior of one of those jurists, U.S. District Judge Alcee Hastings of Miami, was not good enough. By a lopsided vote of 413 to 3, the chamber approved 17 articles of impeachment against him. The main accusation: Hastings conspired to obtain a $150,000 bribe in exchange for granting leniency to two convicted racketeers. The House action puts Hastings, 51, in a very select circle. He becomes only the twelfth judge, and the first black, in U.S. history to be impeached. He is also the first judge to be subjected to the procedure after acquittal in a criminal trial.

Hastings promptly branded the House action a "disgrace" and a * "manifestation of institutional ignorance." From the beginning, and ever more vociferously since his acquittal in 1983, the liberal judge has professed innocence and insisted that race and politics were the prime motivations of his accusers. Because of his sentencing decisions, the Carter appointee has sometimes been labeled a "defendant's judge." In the early 1980s he issued rulings favoring Haitian refugees seeking to remain in the U.S.

When the Judicial Conference of the U.S. recommended last year that the House consider impeachment, the Congressional Black Caucus maneuvered to have the matter placed in the hands of a judiciary subcommittee headed by black Congressman John Conyers. Conyers began as an avowed Hastings sympathizer. But as the hearings unfolded, he says, "the totality of the evidence began to pile up." Last week Conyers drew a standing ovation from the House floor as he pressed his colleagues to vote for impeachment. The judge "has failed to measure up," the Michigan Democrat declared. Voting in favor of impeachment was a painful task for the civil rights coalition in the House. The dissenters also shared the anxiety. Said California Congressman Mervyn Dymally of his negative vote: "In the final analysis I wanted to be able to sleep. I just had to go by the ((1983)) jury decision."

Hastings' problems stem from his longtime friendship with William Borders, a prominent Washington attorney, who was convicted in a separate trial in 1982. After learning from an informant that Borders claimed to be a conduit for bribes to Hastings, the FBI commissioned a retired agent to pose as one of two brothers convicted of racketeering in the judge's courtroom. The impersonator struck a deal with Borders. In exchange for $150,000, Borders would get Hastings to reduce the brothers' punishment. Two meetings and a cryptic wiretapped phone conversation ensued between Hastings and Borders, followed by an order from the judge that $845,000 in confiscated funds be returned to the brothers. Hastings counters, however, that his ruling was dictated by two appellate-court decisions, rather than the Borders deal, of which he claims to know nothing. None of the bribe money has ever been traced to Hastings' pockets, and the evidence against him is circumstantial.

The judge's fight for his $89,500-a-year job will now be decided in the Senate, where it will take a two-thirds vote to oust him. The politically astute Hastings will be arguing the case of his career. Already he is toning down his charges of racism and stressing instead his assertion of innocence and the issue of fairness. He may try to convince the Senators of his claim that the proceedings smack of double jeopardy. He can also be expected to underline the fact that the last federal judge to be removed by the Senate, Harry Claiborne of Las Vegas, in 1986, had previously been convicted of tax fraud by a criminal court. But in one unexpected sense, Hastings will find himself at the center of a stage that he has long wanted to play on: in 1970 he ran unsuccessfully for election to the U.S. Senate.

With reporting by Ted Gup and Steven Holmes/Washington