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In 1981 Judge Hastings was charged with accepting a $150,000 bribe in exchange for a lenient sentence and a return of seized assets for 21 counts of racketeering by Frank and Thomas Romano, and of perjury in his testimony about the case. He was acquitted by a jury after his alleged co-conspirator, William Borders, refused to testify in court (resulting in a jail sentence for Borders).
In 1988, the Democratic-controlled U.S. House of Representatives took up the case, and Hastings was impeached for bribery and perjury by a vote of 413-3. Voters to impeach included Reps. Nancy Pelosi, Steny Hoyer, John Conyers and Charles Rangel. He was then convicted in 1989 by the United States Senate, becoming only the sixth federal judge in the history of the United States to be removed from office by the Senate. The Senate had the option to forbid Hastings from ever seeking federal office again, but did not do so. Alleged co-conspirator William Borders went to jail again for refusing to testify in the impeachment proceedings, but was later given a full pardon by Bill Clinton on his last day in office <2>.
Hastings filed suit in federal court claiming that his impeachment trial was invalid because he was tried by a Senate committee, not in front of the full Senate, and that he had been acquitted in a criminal trial. Judge Stanley Sporkin ruled in favor of Hastings, remanding the case back to the Senate, but stayed his ruling pending the outcome of an appeal to the Supreme Court in a similar case regarding Judge Walter Nixon, who had also been impeached and removed.<3>
Sporkin found some "crucial distinctions"<4> between Nixon's case and Hastings', specifically, that Nixon had been convicted criminally, and that Hastings was not found guilty by two-thirds of the committee who actually "tried" his impeachment in the Senate. He further added that Hastings had a right to trial by the full Senate.
The Supreme Court, however, ruled in Nixon v. United States that the federal courts have no jurisdiction over Senate impeachment matters, so Sporkin's ruling was vacated and Hastings's conviction and removal were upheld.
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Doesn't sound to me as if the guy got a fair shake, does it? He was not found guilty in criminal court, he was not found guilty by 2/3 of the Senate committee who "tried" his impeachment. And the Supreme Court ruled that federal courts have no jurisdiction when he tried to force the whole Senate to "try" his impeachment.
Looks to me as the corruption case didn't stick.
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