400 Law Students Sign Petition, Ask Congress to Impeach Nixon

Over 400 Law School students and three Law Faculty members have signed a petition calling upon the House of Representatives to institute impeachment proceedings against President Nixon.

John Corwin and Bob Gippin, the first-year Law students who wrote and distributed the petition, said yesterday that they plan to contact a sympathetic member of the House-possibly Paul N. McCloskey (R-Calif.) or Bella Abzug (D-N.Y.)-to have the petition introduced in Congress as a bill.

"Congress alone is vested with the power to declare war," the petition reads. "The appropriation of funds does not legally amount to a ratification of the war."

The three faculty members who signed the petition were Derrick A. Bell Jr., Vern Countryman, and Charles R. Nesson '60. More than a quarter of the Law School student body signed.

The petition states that Congress is given power in the Constitution to impeach and subsequently convict (both by two-thirds vote) the President for "high crimes and misdemeanors."

Congress has only used impeachment procedures once, in 1867 when President Andrew Johnson was indicted but not convicted for usurpation of power.

"We don't really believe that impeachment will occur," Corwin said yesterday. "But the antiwar movement is strengthened by the fact that so many Law students are enough opposed to the war to sign this strong statement."