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Judge Hastings’ Impeachment by Senate Panel Is Overturned

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Times Staff and Wire Reports

A federal judge on Thursday overturned the impeachment of former U.S. District Judge Alcee L. Hastings on grounds that he did not receive a fair trial by the Senate.

U.S. District Judge Stanley Sporkin said Hastings’ 1989 ouster was unfair because a 12-member Senate committee, rather than the full Senate, conducted the impeachment trial.

Sporkin, saying the issue “will clearly be settled by the Supreme Court,” did not order a new trial so that the case can be appealed. Hastings was not reinstated to the bench because Sporkin stayed his own order “until the issue has been decided on appeal.”

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Hastings, Florida’s first black federal district judge, was convicted by the Senate on Oct. 20, 1989, of eight impeachment articles charging him with perjury and conspiracy to obtain a $150,000 payoff. He had been acquitted of those charges by a jury in a criminal trial six years earlier.

Hastings, who recently qualified for the Oct. 1 Democratic runoff for the 23rd Congressional District seat, called the ruling “a measure of vindication and very satisfying. For the moment it feels good to be unimpeached.”

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