Breaking: Chief Judge Kozinski Recuses Himself
We’ve been following the controversy around Chief Judge Alex Kozinski of the Ninth Circuit after the discovery of sexually explicit material on his personal website. Our posts are collected here.
Given the firestorm of coverage in the last few days, this latest news may not be surprising:
A federal appeals court judge today recused himself from a closely-watched obscenity trial in Los Angeles, three days after acknowledging that he had posted sexually explicit material on a publicly accessible personal website.“In light of the public controversy surrounding my involvement in this case, I have concluded that there is a manifest necessity to declare a mistrial,” said Alex Kozinski, chief judge for the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. “I will recuse myself from further participation in the case and will ask the chief judge of the district court to reassign it to another judge.”
Yesterday, Kozinski called for an investigation of himself. He continues to handle this with dignity, or as much dignity as one can when there’s talk of cow porn.
Judge Alex Kozinski recuses himself from obscenity trial [Los Angeles Times]
Earlier: Coverage of Chief Judge Alex Kozinski (scroll down)
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He's just jealous that he wasn't on the R. Kelly trial.
Now he'll have more time for viewing. Not that there's anything wrong with that.
Got to hand it to Sanai. Doesn't look good for AK.
Got to feel sorry for the jurors who had to watch the porn that was actually on trial, for nothing, and for the new jurors who will also have to be subjected to it.
Good move for J. Kozinski, bad move for America.
Apparently the MSM are such tools that anyone can use them to cow a judge into a pointless recusal. He should've told them where to stick their story.
Joe Bingham
"Cow a Judge"?
Not that there is anything wrong with that.
Maybe Clarence and AK can room together at the next judicial conference.
Mooooooooooootttt
It's not a pointless recusal. The judge has the motivation to find the art not obscene otherwise he'd be guilty of a crime.
Apparently the MSM are such tools that anyone can use them to cow a judge into a pointless recusal.
Bad pun.
This is bad for every judge who tells a crazy litigant where to shove it. No need for him to have gotten his revenge this way. Whomever gets irrational first, wins.
Sucks about Tim Russert, he was fair.
Probably the best thing for him politically.
ps. Where's the R. Kelly story?!
Seems like it'd be a lot harder to prove that a judge has motivation TO find the art obscene, but it would be equally damaging to the case.
How about this: if you think it's obscene, don't look.
4:51, you're an idiot. Nothing on AK's website even approached "obscene." And it's a jury trial.
4:43, agree 100%
the LA times is absolute garbage in my eyes after ths. they know that kozinski wasnt doing anything that 99% of internet using americans dont do. the way they sensationalized the story and acted as if he was some sort of deviant is disgusting. kozinski is one of the brightest and mots well liked judges in the country and instead of being lauded for being brilliant, he's had his name dragged through the mud by the idiots in the media.
One of the pictures appeared to show a young teenage boy engaging in, uhm, self pleasuring.
Isn't that child pornography?
4:51, congratulations for managing to cram two idiotic, uninformed statements into one sentence. First, none of Kozinski's files were "obscene" or under investigation. Second, the jury, not Kozinski, determines whether the material at issue is obscene.
You're just...so fucking stupid is all.
5:30, only if the teenager was 17 or younger.
Dumbass.
If you are going to comment, get the facts right:
"Got to feel sorry for the jurors who had to watch the porn that was actually on trial, for nothing,"
WRONG: The evidence phase of the trial had not yet commenced. None of the porn had yet been viewed by the jury.
"The judge has the motivation to find the art not obscene otherwise he'd be guilty of a crime."
WRONG: There was no similarity between the materials on trial and the materials Kozinski possessed.
The movies at issue in the trial involved defecation, bondage and other arguably obscene material. The stuff from Kozinski’s family web based archive was not arguably obscene, nor was it "porn", but rather ribald humor--the kind of stuff that gets emailed around as a joke every day of the week.
No one is even suggesing that Kozinski’s collection was in any way illegal, only the extend to which Kozinski should have taken greater steps to protect his family server from malicious snoops like the Los Angeles attorney who leaked the material to The Times for transparently malicious reasons in the context of a long standing campaign to get even with the judge for refusing to interefere with the attorney's parents divorce case.
(The lawyer was even more enraged when the Chief Judge for the 9th Circuit took no action in response to his ethics complaint against Kozinski. In addition, the lawyer called the defense attorney in te pending porn trial before tipping The Times, and was told it was wrong and not to do it.)
The L.A. Times’s Tipster on Kozinski’s Porn: Cyrus Sanai (UPDATED: Commenter Claims to Be Sanai, Makes New Accusations)
http://patterico.com/2008/06/11/the-la-timess-tipster-on-kozinskis-porn-cyrus-sanai/
Was "justice cowed"? Should he have recused himself? How similar were the videos on his website and the images involved in the government's case against artist Ira Isaac? Judge for yourself.
In a follow-up to uncovering images on the Kozinski family website, USLaw.com has gathered images form the videos the government claims are criminally obscene:
USA vs. Ira Isaacs art images (http://www.uslaw.com/pop)
http://tinyurl.com/4eg288
WARNING: I advise everyone to NOT visit any of the above two links to stills from the videos at issue in the LA obscenity trial.
1. They are beyond disgusting--depicting, well, poop--lots of it.
2. The materials have been deemed unlawful to distribute by the United States Justice Department and are the basis for a pending criminal prosecution.
3. You don't want to have to explain these images to your firm's managing partner or IT department.
for all you jackasses trying to misdirect the misinformred, pics of self-sucking young men is some seriously fucked shit, not funny, and potentially going to get someone in some hot water
teh anti-catholic shit was also not teh lulz - its called bigotry assholes
"for all you jackasses trying to misdirect the misinformred, pics of self-sucking young men is some seriously fucked shit"
You are entitled to your opinion--but it is not illegal nor unethical.
5:30. Are you truly that dense? You don't know what is and is not child pornography?
Resign Kozinski!
5:23, you are projecting your bad character onto everyone else. I, for one, don't have pictures of naked women painted as cows on my computers.
And judges need to live up to a higher standard than the average person. There are thousands of brilliant lawyers and judges who could take Kozinski's spot in a second. Intelligence, even brilliance, is not a rare trait in this profession. Why should we settle for someone with Kozinski's bad judgment? Or someone who's shown he's a sexist who'll never be neutral towards women?
Kozinski should be impeached. He's not fit to sit on the bench.
guys in my high school did not distribute anti-catholic propaganda over the internet as jokes.
that would have been a big deal.
9:56 is so brilliant he could take AK's spot in a second! YEAH!!
>>>"Or someone who's shown he's a sexist who'll never be neutral towards women?"
Why not ask women who have known the judge whether or not he is sexist? Perhaps because you'll get an answer that you don't like - that he's remarkably kind and deferential towards women? That, unlike many heterosexual men, he enjoys the company of women (and sees them as more than sex objects with annoying traits)?
Why use a cache of jokes sent to him as a more accurate representation of how Judge Kozinski views women than actual evidence, such as his marriage of almost 30 years, his female clerks who adore him and become very successful, and the women who know him and enjoy his company?
Seriously, Lat, about this coverage: When are you going to stop kissing Kozinski's ass? The guy's an asshole.