Harry E. Claiborne

Claiborne was born on July 2, 1917, in McRae, Arkansas. His father was Arthur Smith Claiborne Jr., a cotton farmer, and his mother was Minnie King Claiborne, a schoolteacher in Little Rock, Arkansas. According to Harry, the Ku Klux Klan's grand wizard once criticized Harry's father, Arthur, for being the only white farmer in the region who was not a member of the organization. Arthur responded, "I won't join any organization whose members need to wear hoods over their faces." Claiborne attended Ouachita Baptist University. He was determined to attend law school at Louisiana State University so he hitchhiked to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, seeking admission. At the time one only needed two years of college for admittance to law school. After he was refused admission, Claiborne hitchhiked back home to Arkansas and caught a ride with a salesman named Schneider, who told Claiborne that he was childhood friends with Judge Albert B. Neil, the chief justice of the Tennessee Supreme Court. Mr. Schneider gave Claiborne a letter of introduction, and after visiting Neil in person, Claiborne was granted admission to Cumberland School of Law, then part of Cumberland University in Tennessee. He graduated from Cumberland with a Bachelor of Laws in June 1941 and returned to Arkansas, where he was a clerk in the Coulter Law Firm of Little Rock (Pulaski County). ==Pre-judicial career==

In 1942 during World War II, Claiborne was admitted to practice in his home state of Arkansas, but since the war had just begun, he enlisted in the United States Army and was sent to the Santa Ana Army Air Base. He served in the military police force. He would later say that he was inspired by his father's stand against the Ku Klux Klan and so refused to go along with the internment of Japanese Americans in camps, and was punished for doing so. ==1964 United States Senate campaign==

In 1964, Claiborne launched a "quixotic, albeit short-lived, campaign for Senate at the last minute on July 15." His campaign in the Democratic primary for the United States Senate was against his friend, incumbent Senator Howard Cannon. Years later Claiborne indicated he was recruited to run by party activists concerned that Cannon's ties to Bobby Baker, the Senate secretary who was then at the center of a financial scandal, would cause the party to lose the seat. Two others entered the primary as well – Las Vegas civil rights activist James McMillan and Sparks City Councilman Bill Galt. However, Claiborne was seen as a bigger threat to Cannon due to Claiborne's high-profile in Las Vegas and his "man-on-the-street appeal" that the other contenders could not match. Las Vegas Review-Journal reporter Jude Wanniski wrote that Claiborne "seems forceful, animated and determined – even if less organized. He bills himself as a fighter and he sounds that way. He mispronounces words here and there, and, for a lawyer, mangles the English language to an unbelievable extent. But it's all masculine and vigorous." Nevertheless, Claiborne's primary campaign "soon deteriorated into a piecemeal, uncoordinated exercise that almost all political analysts and journalists described as hopeless." Cannon ultimately won the nomination and received 59% of the vote. Claiborne placed third, receiving 10,807 votes compared to Galt's 12,054 votes. On primary election night, Claiborne rushed to Cannon's campaign headquarters to congratulate him and pledge support in the general election, proclaiming, "Howard Cannon is a fine man. I know he can serve us better than his opponent." Nearly forty years later, Claiborne noted, "I misjudged the Baker factor. I thought it would defeat Howard." ==Federal judicial service==

On July 25, 1978, Claiborne was nominated by President Jimmy Carter to a seat on the United States District Court for the District of Nevada vacated by Judge Bruce R. Thompson, on the recommendation of Claiborne's former opponent, Senator Howard Cannon. During the appointment process, on August 8, 1978, a hearing was held before the United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary concerning his qualifications and background. At the start of that hearing, the acting chairman, Senator Dennis DeConcini, stated for the record that he had been advised that a "substantial majority" of the Standing Committee on the Federal Judiciary of the American Bar Association was of the opinion that Claiborne was "well qualified" for appointment to the federal bench; a minority of the Bar Association's committee found him not qualified on the sole ground that Claiborne was, at that time, sixty-one years of age. He served as Chief Judge from 1980 to 1986. ==Allegations of impropriety==

In April 1977, Joe Conforte – one of Claiborne's former clients who owned a well-known Storey County, Nevada, brothel called Mustang Ranch – was arrested on 10 counts of income tax evasion and faced a minimum five years in prison and $10,000 fine. He appealed his conviction but fled the country in 1980 when he lost the appeal. Just before fleeing in December 1980, Conforte contacted a prosecutor and offered to become a federal witness against officials he said he had bribed. The most prominent name on Mr. Conforte's list was Harry Claiborne. Conforte claimed he paid Claiborne $85,000 in bribes to give to federal appeals judges to reverse his tax conviction and quash the subpoenas of two prostitutes in a federal investigation into voter fraud. Joseph Yablonsky, who headed the Las Vegas FBI office from 1980 to 1983, offered Conforte millions of dollars in tax breaks for his testimony against Claiborne. With Swanson neutralized, Yablonsky was able in 1983 to get the help of the IRS in returning Conforte to the United States in exchange for testimony against Claiborne. A federal grand jury heard testimony against Claiborne in Portland and Reno, where the Conforte bribes allegedly took place, before indicting Claiborne on bribery, fraud, and tax evasion on December 8, 1983. In April 1984, however, the jury deadlocked and a mistrial was declared, primarily because Conforte's bribery testimony did not hold up in court. Trial evidence showed that Conforte could not have been in Nevada to make one of the bribes because he was in New York renewing a passport while appealing his tax conviction. According to Swanson, "Conforte perjured himself consistently at the trial. His testimony was fabricated. I don't think there were any bribes at all. Conforte constructed the testimony to suit Yablonsky's needs." Supporter Nevada State District Judge Michael Cherry further alleged in 2004, "He was very, very fair to criminal defendants to his detriment. I think that is why the government was so interested in prosecuting him and knocking him off the bench." That the money was owed, but not paid, was generally conceded. ==Impeachment and removal==

When Claiborne entered prison on March 16, 1986, for tax evasion, he intended to return to the bench two years later and therefore did not resign his judiciary post. As a result, he continued to receive his salary of $78,700 a year. This brought considerable controversy and pressure on some in Congress to remove him. However, the United States Constitution allowed only one method for removing a federal judge – impeachment. U.S. House proceedings Impeachment articles On May 22, 1986, Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner, Jr. (R, WI) called for impeachment. On June 3, 1986, Rep. Peter Rodino (D, NJ) introduced H.Res 461 calling for impeachment of high crimes and misdemeanors. The resolution was referred to the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Courts, Civil Liberties and the Administration of Justice. The subcommittee approved the impeachment articles on June 24, 1986. The subcommittee version of Article IV also charged that Claiborne had violated his oath of office. But several members, particularly Bruce Morrison, D-Conn., and Michael DeWine, R-Ohio, opposed this language. Morrison argued the entire article was unnecessary and preferred to rely on only the first three articles to make clear that conviction of a felony was enough to warrant removing a judge from office. However, Robert Kastenmeier, D-Wis., chairman of the U.S. House Courts Subcommittee, argued strongly for inclusion of the article, saying it alleged conduct that was an impeachable offense and was premised on the fact that Claiborne had violated the canons of judicial ethics. Ultimately the subcommittee agreed to a DeWine amendment striking language referring to the oath of office and adding language asserting that Claiborne had "betrayed the trust of the people of the United States." The article was subsequently approved and adopted by the subcommittee on June 24, 1986. In drafting the impeachment articles, the Judiciary Committee tried to stick closely to the jury findings on tax evasion and to the conviction itself. Committee members wanted to avoid general charges that could give Goodman an opening for going beyond the findings of the Nevada jury. Claiborne became the 14th federal official to be impeached by the U.S. House and the first of only three federal officials to be impeached on a unanimous roll-call vote, the others were Thomas Porteous and Walter Nixon. While his impeachment was historic, the debate and final action on July 22 was anticlimactic. No one really doubted that Claiborne would be impeached or that it would be unanimous. On August 6, 1986, the U.S. House presented articles of impeachment to the U.S. Senate. Goodman also went on to accuse several Senators of not properly reviewing the committee transcripts. ==Life after impeachment==

Claiborne was allowed to begin practicing law again in Nevada in 1987, in a decision by the Nevada Supreme Court that implicitly questioned the federal prosecution. His wife, Norma Ries, said they and their 22-year-old grandson, Aaron, were in the house watching American Idol "and laughing about the people who couldn't sing. Harry said his back was hurting and he wanted to go into the den to sit down. Two minutes later my grandson and I heard a gunshot. He was in so much pain, but didn't want to go to the hospital. He was in the hospital in June, and he told me he never wanted to go back there again." ==Personal life==

Harry Claiborne was married four times. He first married Barbara Redfield and they had three children. Claiborne later married (2nd) Lee McGuire, (3rd) Lynn O'Day, and was married for 27 years to Norma Ries. == References ==