Along with other disaffected Democrats, Pickering played a key role in building his state's Republican Party.[2][3]
As a young prosecutor in the 1960s, Pickering worked closely with the FBI to pursue the Ku Klux Klan in Mississippi.[4] In 1966, he testified against Klan member Sam Bowers, who was being tried for the murder of civil rights activist Vernon Dahmer. After testifying, Pickering and his family needed FBI protection. The Klan later claimed victory when Pickering was defeated in his campaign for a seat in the Mississippi House of Representatives.[5]
Pickering was appointed and served as city prosecuting attorney in Laurel. He was thereafter elected and served four years as the Jones County prosecutor. After serving briefly as Laurel Municipal Judge, he was elected to two terms in the Mississippi State Senate from 1972 to 1980.
In 1976, Pickering chaired the subcommittee of the Republican Party's Platform Committee, which called for a constitutional amendment to overturn Roe v. Wade, which established a woman's right to abortion. In 1984, as president of the Mississippi Baptist Convention, Pickering was presiding when the Convention adopted a resolution calling for legislation to outlaw abortion unless the life of the woman was in danger.
On October 2, 1990, Pickering was appointed to the federal district court by President George H. W. Bush.
Fifth Circuit nomination
On May 25, 2001, during the 107th Congress, President George W. Bush nominated Pickering for a seat on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit vacated by Henry Anthony Politz who had taken senior status in 1999, but Pickering's nomination was not acted upon favorably by the Senate Judiciary Committee then under the control of Democratic senator, Patrick Leahy, a Vermont Democrat. Nevertheless, on January 7, 2003, President Bush renominated Pickering to the same position. With the Republicans now in charge of the committee during the 108th Congress, Pickering's nomination was voted out to the full Senate. With no way to stop his confirmation, the Senate Democrats chose to filibuster Pickering in order to prevent him from receiving a straight up-or-down confirmation vote.
Democratic opposition to Pickering was based mainly upon two factors. First, during two hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee, he maintained a position opposing abortion. Second, he was accused of "glaring racial insensitivity" because of a 1994 hate-crime case in which he decided that 25-year-old Daniel Swan, who had participated with two others in a cross burning, should receive a reduced sentence. The other participants in the cross burning had escaped jail sentences for the crime because of plea bargaining. During the course of testimony, Pickering came to suspect that the Department of Justice Civil Rights Division had made a plea bargain with the wrong defendant. He felt that one of the other defendants, a 17-year-old, was more likely the ringleader of the group. When it came time to sentence Swan, Pickering questioned whether it made sense that the most guilty defendant got off with a misdemeanor and no jail time, while a less guilty defendant would be sentenced to seven and a half years in prison. "The recommendation of the government in this instance is clearly the most egregious instance of disproportionate sentencing recommended by the government in any case pending before this court," Pickering wrote. "The defendant [Swan] clearly had less racial animosity than the juvenile." Pickering sentenced Swan to two years in prison rather than to the seven and a half years originally requested by the Justice Department. The Clinton Justice Department later agreed with Pickering and requested a two-year sentence instead.[6]
However, Pickering's nomination was supported by several past leaders of the NAACP in Mississippi. One of his strongest supporters was former senatorial candidate Charles Evers, brother of slain civil rights leader Medgar Evers.
Senate Republicans failed to overcome a filibuster of Pickering's nomination on October 30, 2003, when he did not receive enough votes to invoke cloture and end debate on his nomination. Frustrated with the obstruction of the Senate Democrats, on January 16, 2004, President George W. Bush gave Pickering a recess appointment to the Fifth Circuit.
In December 2004, unable to overcome the filibuster and with his recess appointment about to end, Pickering announced that he was withdrawing his name from consideration as a nominee to the Fifth Circuit and retiring from the federal bench. He later was replaced as a nominee by Michael B. Wallace, but Wallace's nomination was also eventually withdrawn because of Democratic opposition. Only in 2007 was the seat allowed to be filled with Leslie H. Southwick, who was confirmed.
Personal life
Pickering is married to Margaret Ann Pickering, with whom he has three daughters and one son, former U.S. Representative Charles "Chip" Pickering Jr. They have twenty-one grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.[7]
^Crespino, Joseph. (2007). In Search of Another Country: Mississippi and the Conservative Counterrevolution. Princeton: Princeton University Press. p.103.
