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38 UCLA L. Rev. 1209 (1990-1991)
Hundred-Ton-Gun Control: Preserving Impeachment as the Exclusive Removal Mechanism for Federal Judges

handle is hein.journals/uclalr38 and id is 1223 raw text is: HUNDRED-TON-GUN CONTROL: PRESERVING IMPEACHMENT AS THE EXCLUSIVE REMOVAL MECHANISM FOR FEDERAL JUDGES Warren S. Grimes* At the end of the last century, a British observer likened the American impeachment process to a hundred ton gun that was unfit for ordinary use.' Recent experience suggests little to change that assessment. After fifty years of rusting disuse, Congress has thrice in four years used this cumbersome machinery to im- peach, try, and remove from office United States District Judges Harry Claiborne, Alcee Hastings, and Walter Nixon.2 Each time, the machinery worked, but not without anguished gnashing of teeth by many members of Congress cast in unfamiliar prosecutorial or judicial roles. The proceedings were awkward, highly inefficient, and intrusive on an already cluttered legislative calendar. Finding, as Thomas Jefferson did, that impeachment is a bungling way to * Associate Professor, Southwestern University School of Law. As chief counsel of the Monopolies and Commercial Law Subcommittee of the House Judiciary Com- mittee, the author assisted the House Managers during the 1986 impeachment trial of Judge Harry Claiborne. The author is grateful for helpful comments from E.M. Gun- derson, Michael Remington, James Fischer, James Kushner, and Michael Frost. Rob- ert Ottinger, Angela Veltre, and Michael Fine provided valuable research and editorial assistance. 1. Impeachment ... is so heavy it is unfit for ordinary use. It is like a hundred- ton gun which needs complex machinery to bring it into position, an enormous charge of powder to fire it, and a large mark to aim at. I J. BRYCE, THE AMERICAN COM- MONWEALTH 208 (1889). 2. In each case, impeachment charges related to earlier criminal prosecutions. Judge Claiborne had been convicted of falsifying federal income tax forms. Judge Nixon had been convicted of perjury for false statements made to a grand jury which was investigating his possible involvement with a state criminal prosecution. Judge Hastings had been indicted and later acquitted on charges that he solicited a bribe from criminal defendants before his court. See infra Part IV. 1209

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