Judicial Impeachment

Impeachment by the House and conviction by the Senate are the sole means of removing presidents and other federal officials from office. The congressional power to do so had been used sparingly until the early 1980s, when three federal judges were removed by the Senate in almost as many years. Through extensive use of original transcripts, Mary Volcansek analyzes the criminal and congressional proceedings that led to the Senate's conviction and removal of U.S. Judges Harry Claiborne (Nevada), Walter Nixon (Mississippi), and Alcee Hastings (Florida). Claiborne and Nixon both had already been convicted of felonies, yet they demanded impeachment and trial rather than resign their judicial appointments. They and Hastings portrayed themselves as victims of vendettas, claims that altered little when the Senate considered their cases. Volcansek explores various political and legal explanations for the rise in impeachments, among them the Judicial Conduct Act of 1980; the Public Integrity Office of the U.S. Department of Justice; partisanship and ideology; and judicial corruption. She also shows how the cases of Claiborne, Hastings, and Nixon are more than studies in judicial misconduct: the events leading to their Senate convictions, she is convinced, allow evaluation of how law enforcement, the Judicial Conduct Act, impeachment, and politics fit together. Finally, she considers the impeachments in the context of the competing ideals of judicial accountability and independence, suggesting that a type of special counsel be used to investigate alleged judicial misbehavior as a means of stemming misconduct while insulating the judiciary from executive or partisan interference.

Contents: (1) Introduction; (2) Background: The Constitutional Framework; Judicial Decisions Related to Impeachment; Some Basic Research Tools to Assist in Impeachment Proceedings; A Brief History and Some Preliminary Issues Relating to Impeachment; Who Are ¿Civil Officers of the United States¿ Under Article II, Sec. 4 of the Constitution?; What Kinds of Conduct May Give Rise to an Impeachment?; (3) Conclusions and Other Observations.

Contents: (1) Intro.; (2) Overview of the Impeachment Process in the House and Senate; (3) Rules Governing Senate Impeachment Proceedings; (4) Organizing the Senate for Trial; (5) Role of the Presiding Officer; (6) Use of an Impeachment Trial Committee: Org. and Respon. of the Committee; Procedure During the Preliminary Phase of Its Proceedings; Procedure During the Evidentiary Phase of Its Proceedings; Submitting a Report to the Full Senate; (7) Deliberation by the Full Senate; (8) Judgment by the Full Senate; (9) Length of Senate Impeachment Trials; (10) Concluding Observations; App. A. H. Res. 1031, Articles of Impeachment Against Judge G. Thomas Porteous; App. B. Chart of the Senate Impeachment Trial Process. Tables.

At this juncture in American history, some of our most hard-fought state-level political struggles involve control of state supreme courts. New Hampshire witnessed one of the most dramatic of these, culminating in the impeachment of Chief Justice David Brock in 2000, but the issues raised by the case are hardly confined to New Hampshire. They involved the proper nature and operation of judicial independence within a “populist” civic culture that had long assumed the primacy of the legislative branch, extolled its “citizen legislators” over insulated and professionalized elites, and entrusted those legislators to properly supervise the judiciary. In the last few decades of the 20th Century, New Hampshire’s judiciary had been substantially reconfigured: constitutional amendments and other measures endorsed by the national judicial-modernization movement had secured for it a much higher level of independence and internal unification than it had historically enjoyed. However, a bipartisan body of legislators remained committed to the principle of legislative supremacy inscribed in the state constitution of 1784. The 1980s and 1990s witnessed a series of clashes over court administration, allegations of judicial corruption, and finally a bitter and protracted battle over Court decisions on educational funding. Chief Justice Brock publicly embodied the judicial branch's new status and assertiveness. When information came to light regarding some of his administrative actions on the high court, deepening antipathy toward him exploded into an impeachment crisis. The struggle over Brock’s conduct raised significant questionsabout the meaning and proper practice of impeachment itself as a feature of democratic governance. When articles of impeachment were voted by the House of Representatives, the state Senate faced the difficult task of establishing trial protocols that would balance thepolitical and juridical responsibilities devolved on them, simultaneously, by the state constitution.Having struck that balance, the trial they conducted would finally acquit Brock of all charges. Nevertheless, David Brock’s impeachment was a highly consequential ordeal that provided a needed catalyst for reforms intended to produce a productive recalibration of legislative-judicial relations.