Alcee Hastings Trial and Impeachment:
1983 & 1989

Defendant Alcee L. Hasting
Crimes Charged: Trial: Conspiracy to solicit and accept money in return for unlawful influence in the performance of lawful government functions and for corruptly impeding due administration of justice. Impeachment: Fifteen articles detailing charges of conspiracy to accept a bribe and for making false statements and falsifying evidence throughout the investigation and trial; one article for leaking confidential wiretap information; and one article for bringing disrepute to the Federal Courts
Chief Defense Lawyers: Trial: Alcee Hastings, Patricia Williams; Impeachment: Terry Anderson, Patricia Williams
Chief Prosecutors: Trial: Reid Weingarten; Impeachment: Six "trial managers" from the House of Representatives, headed by John Bryant (D) of Texas
Judges: Trial: Edward T. Gignoux; Impeachment: The U.S. Senate, with Senator Robert C. Byrd, president pro tem, presiding
Places: Trial: Miami, Florida; Impeachment: Washington, D.C.
Dates: Trial: January 19-February 4, 1983; Impeachment: October 18-20, 1989
Verdicts: Trial: Not guilty; Impeachment: Guilty on eight articles, which included charges of conspiracy to obtain a bribe and of committing perjury and falsifying documents during the investigation and 1983 trial. Not guilty of leaking confidential wiretap information
Penalty: Removed from federal bench

SIGNIFICANCE: This is the only instance in American history where a Federal official was first tried by a criminal court and, after being acquitted, was then impeached by the U.S. Congress for the same crime. What makes it even more extraordinary is that the individual in question then went on to be elected to the very U.S. House of Representatives that had impeached him.

In 1979, Alcee L. Hastings, the son of domestic servants, became, at age 43, the first African American to be named to the federal bench in Florida. As a member and supporter of numerous local and national civic and social organizations, he was understandably the pride of his home state's black community. It came as a special shock, then, when in December 1981, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida announced that Hastings was being charged with engaging in a plot to solicit and accept a bribe in return for giving a more lenient sentence to convicted criminals.

The Alleged Plot

Word had gotten through to the FBI that William Borders, Jr., a prominent Washington, D.C., attorney and old friend of Hastings, was claiming that he could arrange for favorable sentences by Hastings in return for a payment. To test this, in September 1981, the FBI had a retired agent named Paul Rico pose as Frank Romano, one of two brothers who in 1980 had been convicted of racketeering in Hastings' court. The Romanos had already been sentenced to three years in prison and $1.2 million of their assets had been seized, but the FBI agent posing as Frank (the brothers were out on appeal) arranged with Borders (who had never seen the Romanos) to get the sentence reduced to probation and for $845,000 to be returned. For this, Borders demanded $150,000, a generous portion of which, he claimed, would go to Hastings.

Immediately after Borders made the deal with Rico/Romano, Hastings did issue an order returning $845,000. But because the government arrested Borders the instant he took possession of the money, the government never could actually prove that any of it went to Hastings.

Borders went to trial in March 1982, was found guilty, and was sentenced to five years in prison. Hastings brought a legal action to establish that a federal judge could not be tried without first having been impeached, but the courts rejected this and he was brought to trial.

The Trial

Hastings lost his motion to remove the trial from Miami, but the presiding judge, Edward T. Gignoux, had come from the federal court in Maine because all the federal judges in the Southeast had disqualified themselves. Hastings, defying conventional wisdom that "a lawyer who defends himself has a fool for a client," chose to serve as co-counsel with Patricia Williams, who was also his fiancée. The government's opening argument compared the case to a "jigsaw puzzle where each piece is subject to debatable interpretation."

In fact, the case against Hastings was built almost entirely on circumstantial evidence. William Borders had already insisted that Hastings was not involved in his scheme, and refused to cooperate in any way, forcing the government to rely on tapes of phone calls between Hastings and Borders. The problem was that neither Romano's name nor any sum of money were ever mentioned, so the government had to argue that instead the two men had spoken in code. Thus, the government claimed that phone discussions about a "letter" for a certain Hemphill Pride was really referring to the court order to return $845,000 to Romano. The government also argued that Hastings' departure from Washington as soon as he got word of Borders' arrest constituted "flight" and suggested wrongdoing.

As his own defense lawyer, Hastings called on 49 witnesses—including his own mother—to counter the prosecution's case or to testify to his own integrity. Then, as the 50th witness, he took the stand for an entire day and effectively guided his inexperienced co-counsel, Patricia Williams, in his own interrogation. He had an explanation for each of the government's charges. The return of the $845,000: he did this because a recent appeals court ruling required it. Hemphill Pride was a real individual, a friend of his and Borders', and the letter was a real one that he considered writing to help get him reinstated to the bar. If his name was merely a code, Williams argued, "How would they distinguish when they were legitimately talking about Hemphill and about bribery?"

In summing up, Hastings stated that Borders' claim to the FBI agent posing as Romano was an old lawyer's scam known as "rain-making." The lawyer takes the money to guarantee a decision that he already has reason to believe is coming down—and then if the decision goes otherwise, he returns the money with some excuse about the judge's running scared.

Whatever their reasoning, the jury—10 white people, two black-—after deliberating 17 and one-half hours over three days, returned with a verdict of not guilty. Hastings walked out of the court, still a federal judge. Indeed, on the courthouse steps, he stated, "I think I'm going to be a much better judge than I've ever been." Then he added a typically defiant punch line: "I don't think the Justice Department will ever be able to pull the wool over my eyes."

Phase Two

But his troubles were far from over. Shortly after his acquittal, two of his fellow judges in the Eleventh Circuit filed a complaint with their Judicial Council that led to a three-year investigation of Hastings. After the Council's investigation committee turned in its report concluding that Hastings had broken the law, the full Council endorsed this conclusion and passed it on to the Judicial Conference of the United States. In March 1987, this Conference, composed of federal judges, then informed the House of Representatives that impeachment might be warranted. In May 1988, a special House subcommittee began to examine the case and the evidence. Hastings again tried to stop this, arguing that impeachment would expose him to double jeopardy, and that the whole action was motivated by a racial and political vendetta. But the subcommittee recommended impeachment and on August 8, 1988, the House voted 413 to 3 to accept 17 articles of impeachment. On March 16, 1989, the Senate voted to proceed with all 17 of them.

The Impeachment Trial

Up to this time, there had been only 13 such impeachment trials: one president, one Senator, one cabinet officer, one Supreme Court justice, and nine federal judges. Of these, only five had been convicted—all federal judges. What followed, however, was quite different from the process that Americans later would become familiar with during the impeachment of President Clinton. Concerned that a trial before the full Senate would keep it from more pressing affairs, the Senate set up a special committee composed of six Democrats and six Republicans. Senator Jeff Bingaman (D) of New Mexico was the chairman, while Senator Arlen Specter (R) of Pennsylvania was vice chairman. Meeting sporadically between July 10 and August 3, 1989, this committee reviewed all the facts, considered the evidence, and heard various witnesses, including Alcee Hastings himself. By mid-October the committee submitted a report but did not recommend action in either direction.

On October 18, as the impeachment trial began, Judge Hastings himself addressed the Senate to urge that they cease the proceedings, but the next day, members of the U.S. Senate gathered in a closed session to consider the case. At this time, Senator Specter, the vice chairman of the special committee, released his lengthy personal letter urging the Senate to reject all charges on grounds of insufficient evidence. The next day, the Senate met in open session, and by a vote of 69-26 found Hastings guilty on the first article, then proceeded (by almost the same margins) to find him guilty of seven more articles. The article that charged he brought "disrepute to the Federal Courts" fell seven votes short of the two-thirds majority needed to convict.

Hastings Rebounds

After a federal official has been convicted of one or more articles of impeachment, that individual is automatically removed from office. But the Constitution also gives the Senate the choice to take the additional step of barring that official from ever again holding "any office of Honor, Trust, or Profit under the United States." As it happened, the Senate did not choose to do so for Hastings. So in 1992, Hastings ran for Congress from the 23rd District of Florida—his home base in the Miami area. He was elected to the House of Representatives and then re-elected every two years through at least 2000.

—John S. Bowman

Suggestions for Further Reading

Congressional Record, 101st Cong., 1st sess, 1989.

New, York Times. See Hastings, Alcee in the New, York Times Index, January 19, 20, 23, 25, 27, 28, 29, 1983; February 2, 3, 5, 6, 1983; March 17, 1989; August 11, 1989; October 20, 21, 24, 1989.

Volcansek, Mary L. Judicial Impeachment None Called It Justice. Champaign Ill.: University of Illinois Press, 1993.