Where I Stand — Brian Greenspun: Standing up for justice

Thursday, Jan. 29, 2004 | 8:22 a.m.

IN OCTOBER 1986, as part of the celebration of the Jewish New Year, then Sun Publisher Hank Greenspun wrote a "Where I Stand" column not about the holiday itself but about the meaning of Rosh Hashana.

It is a time when Jews the world over ask to be inscribed in the Book of Life for the coming year. To be so rewarded, one has to have lived an honorable life prior to that time and atoned for whatever sins were committed, as is always the case.

That particular year, Federal Judge Harry Claiborne had been going through a most difficult time, which culminated in his impeachment and removal from the federal court.

Harry's recent death has brought back into focus those dark days of Nevada history when an FBI agent run amok, determined to rid this state of everything evil, whether or not it was evil outside the confines of his own paranoia, was allowed to railroad a good and fair judge without the normal due process afforded other citizens.

Hank's column singled out four U.S. senators who spoke against the injustice that sent Claiborne to jail for tax evasion. Those four stood against their colleagues who chose political expediency rather than justice in his impeachment hearings.

I have chosen to re-publish that column because it illustrates the courage that just men must have and that most people would like to have when put to the test. While it was specific to the life and times of Harry Claiborne almost 20 years ago, it also has application to our present world, one in which the courage to stand up and be counted often gives way to expediency -- political, social or economic.

-- Brian Greenspun

By Hank Greenspun

FOUR JUST MEN.

In the rituals of one of the world's oldest religions, which is being celebrated this week, the tradition is that if you deal fairly with your fellow men and if you are a just man, when the Ram's horn blows at sundown to usher in the New Year, your name will be inscribed in the Book of Life for the year to come.

Inscribe the names of U.S. Sens. Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico, Orrin Hatch of Utah, Dan Evans of Washington and David Pryor of Arkansas.

These four men were found not lacking when out of 100 men in the United States Senate, they were the only ones with the courage to stand and vote not guilty on the four charges of impeachment of Nevada Judge Harry Claiborne.

These four just men were the only ones who could grasp the moral and legal issues of the impeachment matter. From their deep convictions to a righteous course of conduct, they realized that you cannot correct a wrong by extending or compounding it.

Their intellectual dignity made them aware from the beginnings of the testimony before the Senate panel that the government was wrong in pursuing Judge Claiborne long before it learned whether he had or had not committed a crime.

They recognized that the agencies of the Justice Department, the strike force, FBI and IRS had wrong motives when they targeted Claiborne for removal from the federal bench.

If the motives were wrong, then the investigations, the many grand jury actions and the two trials in Reno were wrong because the Justice Department's purposes were dead wrong. The innate perceptions of the four senators revealed to them that the entire process was tainted with wrong, so any vote in the Senate that continued and extended the wrongs was unfair, unjust and violative of all our concepts of innocence until proven guilty after due process of law.

Claiborne was never granted due process. He was indicted for the two years of tax evasion on perjured testimony of a brothel owner so the process was not only legally but morally wrong.

Any trial, no matter how unprejudiced, based on a wrongful indictment, is not a fair trial. So if it was wrong going in, the Senate of the U.S. with all its awesome majesty cannot make it right.

The four just senators with a keen sense of FBI, IRS and strike force overreaching knew it was wrong so they had to voice a protest while 90 percent of their colleagues stood, pointed a finger and said guilty.

Pryor, Hatch, Bingaman and Evans held firm in their beliefs that two wrongs do not make a right. They could not support an activity of governmental agencies whose motives and purposes were wrong.

They spoke truth when Pryor stated their beliefs that what the Justice Department did in Nevada was unconscionable. If a federal judge is not secure in his constitutional rights, what chance does the average citizen have?

Government must show good motives, not bad. It must set standards of fairness, not unfairness. It must presume standards of innocence and not guilt.

Sincere, honorable, highly moral representatives of the people who fervently believe in the Constitution of the U.S. cannot rationalize wrong into right.

Sitting in the press gallery of the Senate, one had to get the feeling that he was watching death condemning life.

It must have been terrible torment for men with a dedication to justice to watch others with closed eyes attempt to kill a living, remarkable concept of law and government embodied in the Constitution of the U.S.

Five more senators wavered between life and death but the four stood steadfastly for life. If it can happen in the country's highest parliament by such overwhelming odds, it will happen again.

Judge Claiborne stood in the well of the most powerful legislative branch in the world and said: "I stand here now; next year it will be another judge and then there will be more and more."

The senators had no intention of departing from their age-old political practices of compromise for the purpose of legislation or adjournment.

There is no compromise with justice. It's either just or unjust. Half-just is not what the Constitution speaks to.

There is a precept of power that says few men can use it justly. In high office, more use it as a club. And the awesome power of the Senate clubbed a federal judge into ignominy and defeat.

Their rush to judgment foreclosed any appearance of a concern for justice. They tried to make it legal, but could not make it respectable. They bullied the still defiant human being sitting in shackles until they finally broke his spirit.

Four grand juries, arrogant bullying prosecutors, a wild judge, a smirking white slaver and a jailhouse could not break Claiborne's will to fight on. But the representatives of the people, who the judge always defended, did him in. A part of his soul died, as he wrote in his note to me.

The issue was never the guilt or innocence of Judge Harry Claiborne, but whether or not he received due process of law.

The Senate proceedings were mainly in closed session. It means that crucial debate was secret. We can only speculate that 32 senators wanted to give the prisoner in the well a fair trial. The majority said "no."

The public has a right to know why it was kept out while the Constitution of the U.S. was being diminished and even defiled.

The four just men of the Senate might yet prevail. Truth may win out.

May the names of Pryor, Hatch, Evans and Bingaman be inscribed in the rolls of the Senate for all the years they desire to faithfully serve their country.

May these fair and just men be inscribed in the Book of Life for the coming year.

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