ATV vs. Impeachment

There was what I considered to be a major story regarding the U S Senate yesterday evening. 

I planned to run it this morning, but then it occurred to me that this blog had been entirely too serious for too many days.  I had decided instead to publish a picture of  a friend’s brand new all-terrain four-wheeler.

When I went on-line this morning and found that neither MSN nor Google News was headlining the impeachment story, I decided I had to post it, too.

 

 

The Senate on Wednesday convicted U.S. District Judge G. Thomas Porteous of Louisiana on four articles of impeachment, making him just the eighth federal judge in history to be removed by Congress.

House prosecutors laid out a damaging case against Porteous, 63, a New Orleans native who was a state judge before winning appointment to the federal bench by President Bill Clinton in 1994. (Because they had so much in common?) The prosecutors said gambling and drinking problems led him to begin accepting cash and other favors from attorneys and bail bondsmen with business before his court.

He also was accused of lying to Congress during his judicial confirmation and filing for bankruptcy under a false name.

The Senate voted unanimously to convict on the first article involving cash from attorneys, and with strong majorities on the other three. They also approved a motion barring him from holding future federal office.

Many of the facts in the case weren't disputed. Porteous' lead attorney, Jonathan Turley, acknowledged that the judge made mistakes but argued that they were mostly personal failings that didn't meet the "high crimes and misdemeanor" standard for impeachment. Turley also argued that many of the practices — such as accepting favors and expensive meals — were common in the Louisiana legal community, and that convicting him for acts that were “pre-federal”  set a dangerous new precedent.

Porteous is the first judge to be impeached and convicted since 1989, when two judges — Walter Nixon of Mississippi and Alcee L. Hastings of Florida — were removed from office. Hastings went on to win a seat in Congress, where he still serves.

Porteous, who turns 64 next Tuesday, planned to retire in December of 2011.  If he had managed to remain in office until then, he would have qualified for a full judicial pension at his salary of $174,000 per year; leaving the bench now, he gets nothing.