Alcee Hastings

Alcee Lamar Hastings (September 5, 1936 – April 6, 2021) was an American politician and former judge from the state of Florida.

He was notable for having been impeached and removed from office as a judge for bribery and perjury.

He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in zoology and botany from Fisk in 1958.

After being dismissed from Howard University School of Law, Hastings received his Juris Doctor from Florida A&M University College of Law in 1963.

While in school, he became a member of the Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity.

He was admitted to the bar in 1963, and began to practice law.

Hastings decided to run for the United States Senate in 1970 after incumbent Spessard Holland decided to retire.

He failed to win the Democratic primary or make the runoff election, finishing fourth out of five candidates, with 13% of the vote.

Former Governor Farris Bryant finished first with 33% of the vote.

State Senator Lawton Chiles was second with 26%.

Chiles defeated Bryant in the runoff election and won the November general election.

In 1977, Hastings became a judge of the circuit court of Broward County, Florida.

Hastings was nominated to the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida by President Jimmy Carter in August 1979.

He was confirmed by the United States Senate on October 31, 1979.

On August 28, 1979, President Jimmy Carter nominated Hastings to the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida.

He was confirmed by the United States Senate on October 31, 1979, and received his commission on November 2, 1979.

Hastings was the first black federal judge in the history of the state of Florida.

In 1981, after an FBI sting operation, Hastings was charged with conspiracy to solicit a bribe.

In 1981, after a sting operation by the FBI against attorney and alleged co-conspirator William Borders, Hastings was charged with conspiracy to solicit a $150,000 bribe in exchange for a lenient sentence for Frank and Thomas Romano on 21 counts of racketeering and the return of their seized assets.

In his 1983 trial, Hastings was acquitted by a jury after Borders refused to testify in court, despite having been convicted in his own trial in 1982.

Borders went to jail for accepting the first $25,000 payment, but was later given a full pardon by President Bill Clinton on his last day in office.

The Judicial Conference of the United States investigated Hastings and brought its accusations, which it believed warranted an impeachment, to the United States House of Representatives.

In 1988, the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives took up the case, and Hastings was impeached for bribery and perjury by a vote of 413–3.

Following a 1983 criminal trial, Hastings was acquitted; however, he was impeached for bribery and perjury by the United States House of Representatives in 1988 and was convicted by the United States Senate in his impeachment trial on October 20, 1989.

While Hastings was removed from the bench, the Senate did not bar him from holding public office in the future.

Hastings was the first and, as of 2023, remains the only African American federal official to be impeached.

His service was terminated on October 20, 1989, due to impeachment and conviction.

He was then convicted in his impeachment trial before the United States Senate on October 20, 1989.

At the time, the Senate was also controlled by a Democratic majority.

Hastings became the sixth federal judge in the history of the United States to be removed from office by the Senate.

The Senate, in two hours of roll calls, voted on 11 of the 17 articles of impeachment.

It convicted Hastings of eight of the 11 articles.

The vote on the first article was 69 for and 26 opposed.

He was removed from the bench, but the Senate did not preclude him from holding office in the future.

A Democrat, Hastings was first elected to the United States House of Representatives in 1992.

He represented Florida's 23rd congressional district from 1993 to 2013 and represented Florida's 20th congressional district from 2013 until his death in 2021.

The 20th district included most of the majority-black precincts in and around Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach.

Following Senator Bill Nelson's departure from office in January 2019, Hastings became the dean of Florida's congressional delegation; he retained this title until his death.

Alcee Lamar Hastings was born in Altamonte Springs, Florida, the son of Mildred L. (Merritt) and Julius "J. C." Hastings.

He was educated at Crooms Academy in Goldsboro (Sanford), Florida, before going on to attend Howard University in Washington, D.C., and Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee.