Vote on Impeaching Judge Permitted

WASHINGTON —  A federal judge refused on Tuesday to block a vote by a special panel of appeals court judges on a recommendation that U.S. District Judge Alcee L. Hastings, who sits in Miami, be impeached.

U.S. District Judge George R. Revercomb denied a request by Hastings for a temporary restraining order to block the vote and the submission of the report to the Judicial Conference of the United States, which is scheduled to meet Sept. 15.

Under a 1980 law, the conference could ask the House of Representatives to impeach Hastings, who was acquitted in 1983 of charges of conspiring with a Washington lawyer to solicit a $150,000 bribe from two convicted racketeers in Florida in exchange for reductions in their prison terms.

An Aug. 4 report, based on an investigation panel’s probe of Hastings’ conduct, recommended that Hastings be impeached on grounds that he is guilty of the bribery charges and charges of improper conduct.

The Senate now is preparing for the impeacement trial of Judge Harry E. Claiborne of Nevada, who is in prison for a tax evasion conviction. Claiborne’s impeacement trial will be the first of a federal judge in half a century.