A controversial Pennsylvania state judge withdrew her nomination Monday to the federal bench after attacks by conservative Republicans - including Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah - had already doomed it.
Frederica A. Massiah-Jackson, a Philadelphia Common Pleas judge, said she withdrew her nomination to the U.S. District Court in Philadelphia because of an "unrelenting campaign of vilification and distortion."But Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Hatch said she would have been "overwhelmingly defeated . . . from both sides of the aisle" in a vote that was scheduled for Tuesday because she was soft on crime, mistreated police and used profanity in court.
That includes an instance when she once ordered undercover narcotics officers to stand in her courtroom and told spectators to look at them for future reference.
"The events surrounding Judge Massiah-Jackson's nomination demonstrate the need for the Senate to scrutinize the president's nominees carefully," Hatch said.
He added, "Given the strong bipartisan opposition from law enforcement groups, her demonstrated leniency in sentencing convicted criminals and the Judiciary Committee's concerns about her lack of candor throughout the nomination process, I believe withdrawing the nomination is the right thing to do."
Hatch's committee gave the judge a rare second hearing last week to allow her to address many of the charges that had been made against her after the committee had earlier endorsed her.
Hatch said, "Her responses were found unconvincing."
But Massiah-Jackson and her main defender, liberal Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., complained critics brought up many new allegations without warning, and gave her no chance to prepare to respond.
Specter said that problems criticized were also taken out of context.
Still, shortly before her nomination was withdrawn, Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., said she was "a classic example of a nominee from the Clinton administration who should not be confirmed."