Amy
03-28-2004, 10:46 PM
The Associated Press
JACKSON, Miss. --
Judge Charles Pickering of Mississippi says it's unfair to label him racially insensitive and that he's spent much of his life trying to improve race relations.
Pickering appeared Sunday on CBS' 60 Minutes in what he said was an effort to clear his name.
"To accuse a white southerner of being a racist is about the worst thing you can do. And this has been my life work," Pickering said in the interview. "I have worked for more than three decades trying to provide better relations between the races, trying to protect equal rights."
Pickering was installed to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals by President Bush after a heated and unsuccessful U.S. Senate confirmation battle.
Democrats have accused Pickering of supporting segregation as a young man, and promoting anti-abortion and anti-voting rights views as a state lawmaker.
CBS reporter Mike Wallace interviewed Pickering in his Hebron home outside Laurel on Feb. 17.
Pickering said he challenged the Ku Klux Klan, testified against former Klan leader Sam Bowers, sent his children to integrated schools and as an attorney represented a black man in an unpopular case.
In 1995, Pickering reduced the sentence for a young defendant who helped burn a cross on the lawn of an interracial couple - a ruling opponents say shows he is racially insensitive.
Pickering defended that decision, saying it was a case of "disproportionate sentencing" in which one defendant was to be sentenced to more than seven years in prison while two others involved in the crime received no prison time.
"And if anyone will read the transcript of where I sentenced him, there's no way that an objective person will come with any view that I was soft on a cross burner or that I had sympathy for a cross burner," Pickering said.
Pickering's recess appointment expires next year. He said he may try again to win Senate confirmation to the court.
Kevin Tedesco, a spokesman for 60 Minutes, said it was "extremely rare for a federal judge to grant an interview, and Judge Pickering's story is illustrative of the partisan scrutiny nominees must go through in the judicial confirmation process."
There is also a summary of part of the interview at http://cbsnewyork.com/topstories/topstories_story_088210605.html
JACKSON, Miss. --
Judge Charles Pickering of Mississippi says it's unfair to label him racially insensitive and that he's spent much of his life trying to improve race relations.
Pickering appeared Sunday on CBS' 60 Minutes in what he said was an effort to clear his name.
"To accuse a white southerner of being a racist is about the worst thing you can do. And this has been my life work," Pickering said in the interview. "I have worked for more than three decades trying to provide better relations between the races, trying to protect equal rights."
Pickering was installed to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals by President Bush after a heated and unsuccessful U.S. Senate confirmation battle.
Democrats have accused Pickering of supporting segregation as a young man, and promoting anti-abortion and anti-voting rights views as a state lawmaker.
CBS reporter Mike Wallace interviewed Pickering in his Hebron home outside Laurel on Feb. 17.
Pickering said he challenged the Ku Klux Klan, testified against former Klan leader Sam Bowers, sent his children to integrated schools and as an attorney represented a black man in an unpopular case.
In 1995, Pickering reduced the sentence for a young defendant who helped burn a cross on the lawn of an interracial couple - a ruling opponents say shows he is racially insensitive.
Pickering defended that decision, saying it was a case of "disproportionate sentencing" in which one defendant was to be sentenced to more than seven years in prison while two others involved in the crime received no prison time.
"And if anyone will read the transcript of where I sentenced him, there's no way that an objective person will come with any view that I was soft on a cross burner or that I had sympathy for a cross burner," Pickering said.
Pickering's recess appointment expires next year. He said he may try again to win Senate confirmation to the court.
Kevin Tedesco, a spokesman for 60 Minutes, said it was "extremely rare for a federal judge to grant an interview, and Judge Pickering's story is illustrative of the partisan scrutiny nominees must go through in the judicial confirmation process."
There is also a summary of part of the interview at http://cbsnewyork.com/topstories/topstories_story_088210605.html