Judge Ware’s lies came to light last week. The James Ware whose brother was killed that day in 1963 is actually an unassuming Birmingham coal-company worker; he has never met the celebrated jurist nominated to the U.S. Court of Appeals who shares his name–and borrowed his life story. After the deception surfaced in The Birmingham News, forcing Judge Ware to withdraw his name from consideration for the nation’s second highest court, the other James Ware told NEWSWEEK, ““I can’t understand why he wanted to do this . . . You shouldn’t try to get ahead using somebody else’s pain.’’ But to hear Judge Ware tell it, even if that pain wasn’t his, it was still very real: in 1963 he was also 16, also living in Birmingham, also traumatized by the town’s bloody confrontations. In a statement last week, Judge Ware wrote, ““I used my tenuous connection with the Wares and my own feeling of loss as a basis for making a speech about Virgil Ware’s death . . . I regret my lack of honesty.''

Now no amount of regret seems likely to get Judge Ware’s career back on track. Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions, a member of the Judiciary Committee, says, ““The [judiciary] requires men and women of the highest ability, integrity and judgment. At the very least, this lie reflects on his judgment, and perhaps on his integrity as well.’’ Appointed to the district court for life and unlikely to face any kind of criminal charge (it appears he never told his falsehood under oath), Ware says he has no plans to leave the bench. But staying on the job won’t be easy, says one prominent constitutional lawyer. ““He’ll be recused from every case that involves racism or civil rights because lawyers will argue that he feels so passionate that he fabricated this story.''

Still, even his critics seem saddened by the fall of a judge once seen as a potential Supreme Court justice. His skills are considered unimpeachable, his oratory impressive. In 1995 Ware told the shooting tale to a group of 300 judges and lawyers after dinner at a retreat in California’s Napa Valley. Nanci Clarence, a San Francisco lawyer who organized the evening, recalls that ““there was absolute silence. Not a single fork being scraped against a dessert plate, not a single wineglass being lifted.’’ At the heart of his story about Virgil Ware was a message to his colleagues about the need to overcome past tribulations. Now he can only hope that they extend that same compassion to him.