An L.A. Jury + Hours of Hard-Core Fetish Porn + Chief Judge Alex Kozinski, Presiding = Total Awesomeness
One of our favorite members of the federal judiciary — the brilliant and hilarious Alex Kozinski, Chief Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit — is in the headlines once again. Interestingly enough, it’s not for any appellate decision, but for a trial he’s presiding over (sitting by designation as a district judge).
And it’s no ordinary trial. From a tipster:
The Hon. Alex Kozinski, the (still-reigning?) #1 Superhottie of the Federal Judiciary, will be presiding over a trial — yes, you read that right — in an obscenity case involving a fetishist named Ira Isaacs.
More details, from the Los Angeles Times:
Ira Isaacs says his films, which feature bestiality and defecation, have artistic value. Federal prosecutors say they are criminally obscene. Hours of footage will help jurors decide who’s right.
Fun stuff. This is one jury that won’t need Sudoku to stay awake.
In an article on Monday, the Los Angeles Times reported:
[Chief Judge Kozinski’s] involvement in the case may be a stroke of luck for Isaacs. That is because Kozinski is seen as a staunch defender of free speech. When he learned that there were filters banning pornography and other materials from computers in the appeals court’s Pasadena offices, he led a successful effort to have the filters removed.
Perhaps even luckier than expected? Learn why, after the jump.
From a follow-up article, just posted to the L.A. Times website:
One of the highest-ranking federal judges in the United States, who is currently presiding over an obscenity trial in Los Angeles, has maintained a publicly accessible website featuring sexually explicit photos and videos.Alex Kozinski, chief judge of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, acknowledged in an interview with The Times that he had posted the materials, which included a photo of naked women on all fours painted to look like cows and a video of a half-dressed man cavorting with a sexually aroused farm animal. Some of the material was inappropriate, he conceded, although he defended other sexually explicit content as “funny.”
MOO! Should Chief Judge Kozinski recuse himself?
Stephen Gillers, a New York University law professor who specializes in legal ethics, told The Times that Kozinski should recuse himself from the Isaacs case because “the public can reasonably question his objectivity” concerning the issues at hand.Gillers, who has known Kozinski for years and called him “a treasure of the federal judiciary,” said he took the judge at his word that he did not know the site was publicly available. But he said Kozinski was “seriously negligent” in allowing it to be discovered.
Do you agree or disagree? Take our reader poll below, and opine in the comments.
Update (3:00 PM): The WSJ Law Blog has more on the story over here.
Update (6/12/08): A follow-up post on this story appears here. Note especially the update, reporting the suspension of the trial.
Upcoming trial will see hours of hard-core fetish pornography [Los Angeles Times]
9th Circuit’s chief judge posted sexually explicit matter on his website [Los Angeles Times]
LA obscenity case nauseates some potential jurors [AP]
(191) Comments
Comments
first. also, lat, the first link is not about the trial. it is about KOZINSKI'S OWN PERSONAL PORN SITE BEING REVEALED.
WHY DOESNT THIS HAVE IT OWN POST?!?!?!?!?!?!
Kozinski has his own porn storage site. Classic.
Wow. I thought at first that he was uploading material from his trial. Who knew Koz was into pubic shaving porn? Awesome.
Agree, Lat, you're missing how ridiculous this is. Here's the quote from the article:
One of the highest-ranking federal judges in the United States, who is currently presiding over an obscenity trial in Los Angeles, has maintained a publicly accessible website featuring sexually explicit photos and videos.
Alex Kozinski, chief judge of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, acknowledged in an interview with The Times that he had posted the materials, which included a photo of naked women on all fours painted to look like cows and a video of a half-dressed man cavorting with a sexually aroused farm animal. Some of the material was inappropriate, he conceded, although he defended other sexually explicit content as "funny."
Whoa WHOA WHOA, Lat! There are two completely independent stories contained in the links. One is interesting as a first amendment story and the other is completely CRAZY! Kozinski with crazy porn on his computer that was publicly available???
Quotes from the article:
Kozinski said he would delete some material from his site, including the photo depicting women as cows, which he said was "degrading . . . and just gross." He also said he planned to get rid of a graphic step-by-step pictorial in which a woman is seen shaving her pubic hair.
....
The sexually explicit material on Kozinski's site earlier this week was extensive, including images of masturbation, public sex and contortionist sex. There was a slide show striptease featuring a transsexual, and a folder that contained a series of photos of women's crotches as seen through snug fitting clothing or underwear. There were also themes of defecation and urination, though they are not presented in a sexual context.
...
Before the site was taken down, visitors to http://alex.kozinski.com were greeted with the message: "Ain't nothin' here. Y'all best be movin' on, compadre."
Only those who knew to type in the name of a subdirectory could see the content on the site, which also included some of Kozinski's essays and legal writings as well as music files and personal photos.
The judge said he began saving the sexually explicit materials and other items of interest years ago.
"People send me stuff like this all the time," he said.
He keeps the things he finds interesting or funny with the thought that he might later pass them on to friends, he said.
************************
wow. he thought step-by-step shaving & crotch-shot photos were "funny," as were photos of naked women painted like cows. just hilarious.
this really does deserve its own post, Lat, even if AK was an early pen pal who was nice to you.
Lat, Kozinski's porn site has nothing to do with the trial. it's his own porn. its his own site!!!! kozinski thinks it is "funny". Should have had its own headline, big boy.
Anyone know where these pictures might be available now?
Why is this not a "Judge of the Day" post?
When state judges shave themselves during trial, they're "icky state court judges," but when your superhottie friends runs his own porn cite, it's "awesome"
This post seems to be evolving (which is why some of the earlier comments no longer make sense).
Explosive story not because the dude has a porn collection, but because he felt the need to make it available over the web, even if he did think it was available only to his "friends"
And is he claiming this was art or freakshow stuff and not purient?
I agree with 2:27. Lat may be doing some lame AK-protecting here. Dude, this is most salacious legal gossip in weeks -- throw up the flashy siren! Don't bury this!
How ironic is Kozinski's words to the jurors, as reported in the third link, that he'll "be right there watching with you"?
I just bet he will be.
Freak.
Why should he recuse? What (male) judge DOESN'T watch porn?
There is no way a reporter just stumbled onto this website, someone, with the password, dropped a dime on the judge.
2:34: Because there's porn and then there's PORN. If as described, at least some of the stuff on his "friends only" website crossed the line.
how about a flaming flashing light post entitled LAT FRIEND AK HAS PUBLIC PORN SITE WITH SHAVING AND UPSKIRT PICS, THINKS THEY ARE "FUNNY"
Ah, memories:
http://underneaththeirrobes.blogs.com/main/2004/06/courthouse_foru.html
I dont think I've ever seen a picture of a naked woman painted to look like a cow? And what kind of cow are we talking about anyway? A black and white spotted cow or one of those brown Jersey cows? Thanks wikipedia!
I dont think I've ever seen a picture of a naked woman painted to look like a cow. And what kind of cow are we talking about anyway? A black and white spotted cow or one of those brown Jersey cows? Thanks wikipedia!
Some will write this off as yet another hypocritical conservative or hypocritical crusader, but I don't think that's true here. As far as I know he has always protected the very same conduct he's engaging in.
Some will write this off as yet another hypocritical conservative or hypocritical crusader, but I don't think that's true here. As far as I know he has always protected the very same conduct he's engaging in.
2:41--Despite having slobbering conservative fanboys, Kozinski himself gives more the impression of libertarianism. So this is pretty in character.
2:41: and that makes a difference, how?
Bullshit that it is a coincidence that the Chief Judge was assigned to this particular trial.
saying the stuff is legal is one thing. saying the content is "funny" is another. Nice that Lat is not playing this up - he would have crucified some others for the very same thing. so much for evenhandedness.
2:45(2)--Seriously. It's funny to air the dirty laundry of other people in the profession until suddenly it's one of Lat's favorites. Don't expect this post to be retitled "Judge of the Day" anytime soon.
Why doesn't the below have its own post?
"He also said he planned to get rid of a graphic step-by-step pictorial in which a woman is seen shaving her pubic hair."
"The sexually explicit material on Kozinski's site earlier this week was extensive, including images of masturbation, public sex and contortionist sex. There was a slide show striptease featuring a transsexual, and a folder that contained a series of photos of women's crotches as seen through snug fitting clothing or underwear. There were also themes of defecation and urination, though they are not presented in a sexual context."
I don't understand Gillers' point about AK's objectivity.
Wouldn't someone who doesn't like porn have a subjective stance as well?
I don't see any problem with Kozinski's porn stash. It all sounds funny and harmless. Get over it.
To Lat's credit, he has revised the post & is now, in fact, highlighting a bit more the weirdness of AK's behavior.
From reading the initial post, I just thought that AK accidentally posted online material from this upcoming trial he'll be overseeing. After I read the link, it became clear he was storing porn online on his own personal website. And that the porn he was storing was some *truly* weird shit. That he thought was "funny."
If I had an employment discrimination case based on gender before him, I think I'd move for his recusal. If he thinks it's funny to see women painted as cows on all fours, I bet he'd sympathize with that boss who just couldn't help himself joking about it being "nipply" in here or something.
Why is Kozinski's porn collection below the fold? Seriously Lat... Your credibility has taken a serious hit.
Back when I was on the 9th circuit, we all shared our fetish porn collections. It was no big deal.
How often do COA judges sit by designation? I know USDC judges sit on the COA with some frequency; just didn't realize it went the other way around....
Looks like the Koz is a porn fan in his own right. Check the WSJ law blog.
Folks, you're all missing the bigger issue here! What women still shave their pubic hair?? Who doesn't nair or wax in this day and age???
How did Kash get the black and white paint off when it was over?
Anyone who thinks his porn collection was "weird" or beyond the pale of "normal porn" has lived a very sheltered life.
Folks, you're all missing the bigger issue here! What women still shave their pubic hair?? Who doesn't nair or wax in this day and age???
Oh, wow. I thought the site was evidence from the trial. It's his own porn site? Created from his chambers in the federal judiciary? No wonder he moved to have the 9th COA porn filters dismantled. (Now I guess we know how he came to discover they existed in the first place!)
As if taxpayers weren't up in arms enough about the crazy "life tenure" judiciary. Although this time it is a conservative judge that will raise their ire.
Can someone please share how he came to sit by designation on this particular case? And how often he sits by designation? I think that makes a huge difference in whether or not he should be recused.
I also think people should be allow to change their votes as to his recusal now that they know that the site being discussed is his own personal kinky porn site and not just a federal judge blundering over an online data storage of evidence in a trial before him....
Anyone who thinks his porn collection was "normal" has problems of their own. Nekkid pictures are one thing. Some of this stuff sounds over the top. And then to say it's "funny" and pass it around to his "friends"??
I agree with the other commenters -- Lat, you're being a hypocrite.
And, yeah, a guy who is entertained by the idea of women being cows is kind of a creep, and I really doubt he'd be objective. Of course everyone likes porn. But there's porn that's about sex or porn that caters to specific acceptable fetishes and such *that don't harm anyone*, and then there's porn that's about degrading entire groups of people (e.g., women, blacks, Jews, etc.) And THEN there's porn that can only titillate those who are sick enough to get off on the sexual abuse of someone incapable of consent (e.g., children, animals). Where the fuck is PETA on this one??
Somehow I doubt the Founding Fathers meant for the First Amendment to protect someone's inalienable right to distribute images of people sexually abusing animals.
Interesting - so far the poll results are 60-40 against recusal.
What is the matter with you people? You blocks, you stones, you worse than senseless things--know you not true art. Having partaken in the one true form of artistic expression innumerable times, I can tell you that nothing sings to my inner muse more than bukake. Salad toss anyone?
2:44 - it is not the be all end all, but it matters because hypocrisy is one part of how these things get traction. Spitzer had no chance in large part because he was a crusader and had gone after the prostitution industry (among others). Koz on the other hand has not been saying porn is despicable and unprotected in his public role, while doing the opposite in private life. It is a significant fact, but I did not suggest it excuses the behavior or answers questions about his fitness to serve.
If the Founding Father didn't mean for the First Amendment to protect images of people having sex with animals, they could easily have written "Freedom of speech shall only encompass the written and spoken word." They didn't.
Why do you keep changing the page, Lat? Any other judge would be Judge of the Day for sure. AK's foibles, on the other hand, are buried beneath links. Niiiiice.
JUDGE OF THE DAY
The real issue here is that the Judge is quite literally sitting in judgment in a trial over whether similar porn (involving beastiality, etc) is legal. It becomes esp. pressing given that this was not a case randomly assigned to him: Thus, it will appear to the public that he took a break from his COA work and chose to sit on this trial either (1) because the subject matter amuses him or (2) because he wants a certain outcome. Hardly an appearance of impartiality....
How on earth is the "no" to recusal category winning? How is this even a close question?
"Yeah, but he's a pervert, Dude."
@3:12: So the First Amendment protects abusing animals? What about children?
I get your argument that the First Amendment protects images, including porn. But beastiality is a form of animal abuse, and your constitutional chest thumping doesn't change that.
In Lat's defense, he did put this in boldface type:
"a photo of naked women on all fours painted to look like cows and a video of a half-dressed man cavorting with a sexually aroused farm animal"
The Kozinski porn news is outrageous.
Underneath their robes, indeed.
Lat's headline only talks about the trial. way to bury the real story about your friend AK, lat. HOW ABOUT A HEADLINE CALLING OUT AK'S "FUNNY" PORN SITE????
Koz has got a jack-top...nice
Why is bestiality considered a form of animal abuse? There's plenty of stuff we make animals do against their will for our own personal pleasure, and it's all perfectly legal. And many of these things are objectively harmful to the animal, whereas nobody knows for certain whether or not donkeys like getting jacked off.
What's going on here? You have committed a classic "burying the lead." Based on the values and content of this site (gossipy info about the law, especially federal judges, and especially Judge Koz), one would think that a revelation that a federal Judge--not just a federal judge, but the most famous federal judge outside of the SC--posted a pronographic web site (and admitted as such) would be front page news. Your site loses credibility in the short-shrift, ho-hum treatment you have given this blockbuster story.
Hey Lat - your hero is into beastiality. Guess you should end your fetish with him since he's clearly into someone else.
The article only says a half naked man was cavorting with a sexually aroused animal. That doesn't necessarily mean they were humping. Moreover, we "abuse" animals in any number of ways (see e.g. steak, leather shoes, fur coats). I don't really see what's so bad about helping an animal get off. At least they're alive afterwards, and likely in a much better mood.
The term is "burying the lede," Professor Journalism.
well said 3:26, well said
People have been fired from prestigious jobs for much less.
3:31, not necessarily *exclusively* bestiality...
Judgeship + pervert = judge of the day
Judgeship + former supreme court clerk + ATL correspondent = "total awesomeness"
So it goes at ATL.
Has to be Judge of the Day - to do less would be to show lack of journalistic integrity.
3:26 and 3:31 -- hilarious
is it really animal/child abuse to wank off a donkey or an 11 year-old? I mean, they probably enjoyed it. Likewise, rape. I mean, it's not like I killed the broad, and she seemed to be having fun by the end.
No harm, no foul, right?
Really brilliant stuff, 3:26 & 3:31
Perhaps the woman in question was posing as "Rose 2d of Aberlone"...
@3:26 -- yeah, we kill animals (sometimes in very cruel ways) to eat. That doesn't mean we should condone humans raping them for the humans' sexual gratification. (The animals didn't consent. Nor did they initiate the acts. You can't simply say there's no proof that they didn't want to have sex with humans -- in most species sex is for procreation, not pleasure, and thus inter-species sex isn't something that these animals want, even if they appear to outwardly respond.)
Why are these public figures so often such idiots? Why on EARTH would you put yourself in this position given your responsibility to the public and the possibility that this kind of exposure would occur? He should recuse himself if only to make all of this go away.
And, yes, this is the biggest news in weeks on ATL.
3:36: Brilliant.
3:34 -- your analogy, in its failure to distinguish between humans and other animals, reeks of fail.
3:36 -- we kill and abuse animals for purposes other than "to eat."
The basic philosophical position of PETA and its ilk is that animals and humans are equivalent, and have the same rights. That position is not obvious to most humans.
Exploiting animals is not generally considred morally comparable to exploiting children.
no, 3:40, the point is that neither animals nor minor children are capable of consenting, you giant douche.
Dear All Other Animals:
We won. To the victor go the spoils.
Sincerely,
Humans
The point is that humans and animals are NOT the same. It's precisely the reason I can make a jacket out of a cow and why I cannot make one out of your flesh for trying to reduce human beings and animals to the same level of generality.
my god lat go after AK like a rabid dog just like you go after everyone else or go go home and cry i am a fraud
the greater does not always include the lesser.
yes, our law and morality generally view eating or killing animals to use them for clothing as acceptable. But our law and morality do not view torturing animals as acceptable -- see Vick and dogfighting, or using animals as sexual objects.
Yeah, 3:40, I got your point. My point was that it's a pretty superficial analogy considering all the other relevant moral distinctions between a human child and an animal.
OK 3:44, am go-going home now.... you are a fraud, you are a fraud, you are a fraud, you are a fraud . . . .
Do you realize how big of a deal this is? Lat, I suggest you take advanatege of your working relationship with Judge Kozinski and get an exclusive interview with him where he further explains why he was so shortsighted to have posted this site. Seriously, if this were Obama or McCain (or Obama's pastor), their campaign would be over. Although it was a remote possibility, any SC hopes for Koz are gone. I wouldn't be a bit surprised to see a movement sprout up to remove his as chief judge of the 9th in the next few days.
This is why we have newspapers and other kinds of accountable and respectable media - so we aren't forced to rely on the whims of bloggers.
LA Times: Kozinski porn story front and center.
Above the Law: Kozinski porn story not only buried, but buried within another story.
S&C represented the Nazis for god's sake, we'll represent a guy who likes upskirt and jagoff picks.
Field Marshal DiBlasi
Who are you people .. is bestiality right or wrong?? It's gross. End of story.
3:49: Thank you. I'm actually more appalled by Kozinski's "Hey, whatever" response to all of this than by the shit on his website.
Thanks, 3:46, for that incredibly unhelpful observation.
S&C represented the Nazis for god's sake, we'll represent a guy who likes upskirt and jagoff pics.
Field Marshal DiBlasi
S&C represented the Nazis for god's sake, we'll represent a guy who likes upskirt and jagoff pics.
Field Marshal DiBlasi
I wonder if S&C would represent a guy like Kozinski, does anyone know?
PLAY HELD AT FORD THEATRE!!!!!!!
(president lincoln assassinated)
Uptight Americans.
3:51 so true. he thinks the stuff is odd, interesting, funny, hey - whatever guys!!! hahahaha
sorry koz, try the word sorry. totally inappropriate and cant even admit it.
LAT your efforts here (or lack thereof) are nothing short of SHAMELESS.
Pain + fear + suffering should be minimized, whether felt by humans or animals.
Just because we can doesn't mean we should.
Beastiality is against the law. If you want to make it legal, go sponsor a bill.
But THE REAL POINT here is that a judge that condones beastiality porn should not be overseeing a trial to determine whether such materials are legal.
3:51 -- to which 3:46 post are you referring?
The first, mine, I think rather nicely refutes the simplistic reasoning offered by the d-bags who are asserting that it's totally cool to anally rape kittens because, hey, like, we eat cows and, uh, use all kinds of animal fur to make coats.
The second 3:46, however, is rather unhelpful in making bold, but unelaborated, assertions.
Thank you, 3:46(1). But I am afraid your ability to understand and contextualize the finer distinctions -- rather than loudly shouting "humans and animals are different!" -- will go over the heads of most here. We only like superficial chest thumping about the moral superiority of humans, please.
Kozinski shouldn't recuse himself. Peple like porn, and most people aren't strictly vanilla. To think otherwise is ignorant and absurd. If Kozinski gets off to the same type of porn that's on trial, then he should recuse himself, but nothing in the article suggests that he does. It's just a shame that he felt he had to defend himself by calling the porn "funny" instead of just admitting to being human.
I bet all you outraged types are just FANTASTIC in the sack.
3:12, did you intentionally misinterpret the First Amendment point? The relevant part was not "images," which would have been clear to someone with half a brain. The First Amendment also doesn't protect distributing images of naked children posed in a sexually seductive manner. The fact that they are images is hardly the end of the discussions. Just because the First Amendment protects some images, does not mean it protects ALL images.
Those of you who favor the sexual abuse of animals: as to your (very stupid) arguments that, "hey, we abuse them in other ways, and that's legal," assuming the correctness of your premise, so what? We allow some abuse of animals, so we should allow any and all abuse of animals? Two wrongs make a right?
Also, aside from cruel methods of killing animals (something whose legality is questionable at best anyway) and similarly cruel things done to animals at commercial farms (again, even to the extent it may be legal to hook cows up to machines that will milk them dry, that doesn't mean it isn't abuse), what sorts of animal abuse do you think are legally condoned in our society? Many jurisdictions have now banned the sale of foie gras because it involves force-feeding geese. By your reasoning, hey, it's food, shouldn't the geese enjoy it? Why don't you go to Chicago and explain why the sale of foie gras must be allowed?
Do you seriously not get that using for sex a living being who is incapable of consent is immoral and illegal? You seriously don't see what's wrong with fucking your jack russell terrier in the ass??
If we allow the guardians of mentally handicapped people to consent to sex for them (as E. Volokh suggested would be a good solution to the problem posed in the Slate.com dementia sex article), why can't we allow animals' guardians to consent to sex for them?
3:59, nothing in the article suggests that Kozinski had or used bestiality porn. "Cavorting" can mean anything. Even A&F published a catalogue that included a picture of a naked woman riding a horse.
4:06 -- would you find it legally and morally objectionable if I stuck my dick in a tree? It's also a "living being...incapable of consent."
"PLAY HELD AT FORD THEATRE!!!!!!!
(president lincoln assassinated)"
AWESOME.
4:11 -- it'd be fine by me if somebody shoved his dick, or a baseball bat, in either a tree or you. Although both the tree and you are living beings incapable of consent, neither the tree nor you have a brain (in contrast to beings like a donkey, a cat or a human).
What about a really smart chimpanzee? It seems they could give meaningful consent through a series of toothy grins and hand clapping. Would that be OK?
4:11, actually, yeah, please go ahead and do that. Be sure to hump it lots and lots, and make sure it's a dry old splintery tree. You and your dick just go have a grand old time with that wooden pussy.
Lat is radio silent. Can't take the heat I guess.
Thank you to 3:46(1), 4:00, 4:06, and others. I had begun to wonder if the legal profession really did lack compassion or the intellectual ability to see the shades of grey
4:09 - because we don't. That's an absurd hypothetical. All the analogy shows is that each idea is roughly as bad and as creepy as the other.
I love my foie gras. If you don't love it, don't eat it. If you honestly think that the methods used to produce it constitute animal abuse and that said abuse is the moral equivalent of your Uncle Gary, "the tickle monster" raping your five year old, then you are an idiot.
To the people condoning bestiality, I get part of your point, but you're presenting it in an awfly creepy way. How about this:
Having sex with an animal is no worse (and in fact is probably better) than most of the horrible things we do to animals. Why do people get all up in arms about bestiality when they sit silent for all other types of animal abuse? There are two possible answers: (1) these people are hypocrites and conveniently lose their reverence for living beings when the abuse benefits them, (2) we have a puritanical view of sexuality that imbues objectively equivilant behaviors (e.g., abuse) with added contempt when sexuality is involved.
note: farmers "jack off" animals all the time to collect sperm, and they induce orgasm in the female during artificial insimination because it increases the likelihood of pregnancy. Is there a moral differnce between doing this for fun and doing it for profit? If so, why, other than the subjective "ick" factor of deviant sexuality?
4:17, it should have been obvious, but no, that was not my point. The point was that something that is arguably LESS abusive to animals than rape is outlawed -- the point was to refute those who, bizarrely, seem to think any kind of abuse of animals is both morally and legally a-ok.
A respected law professor today proposed that allowing guardians to consent to sex on behalf of the mentally disabled was a "reasonable approach" to solving the problem of depriving the mentally disabled from having legal sex.
Said prof was also a Kozinski clerk.
I fucked 4:14's dog once. She was mediocre. No wonder 4:14 is so uptight and angry.
4:22, thanks for making the first *reasonable* argument in favor of bestiality. You have a fair point, but you are also assuming that those of us who oppose bestiality do not also oppose other forms of cruelty to animals. Speaking only for myself, I can already tell you that assumption is faulty.
Or, rather, the first reasonable argument against those of us who oppose bestiality. Yours, however, isn't quite an outright justification of bestiality.
LOL @ 4:14
I have no opinion one way or the other on this, just a question: What kind of loser creates an account to comment on this site??
What about girls doing dogs/horses/donkeys? Surely the animal consents in that scenario.
lol, thank you 4:29 and 4:30. Your 4:30 post captured my intention.
4:33, you're just jealous of my hamster graphic.
I doubt any of the outraged commenters on here have actually witnessed any acts of so-called "bestiality." Having been to more than one "Donkey Show," however, I can assure you that there are situations where the animal not only consents but is indeed the sexual aggressor and dominant partner.
Accord, 4:29.
And thanks also to 4:22 for being the first pro-beastiality commenter to intelligently engage in the discussion (the "humans are the best!!!" posts just don't cut it).
4:35 and 4:37, so you're saying that you always, in every situation no matter what, are able to prevent yourselves from getting an erection? And that every time you get an erection you have consented to sex with whomever or whatever happens to be around at the moment (including, say, your buddy Jim)?
"Having been to more than one "Donkey Show,"
Jesus Christ. There are some freaks out there.
If I mount Jim and proceed to fuck him for 20 minutes, yes.
4:39 -- I'm sorry you have such intense disdain for other cultures.
4:39,
Having an erection? Not consent. Sticking my erection into an orifice? Consent.
--4:35
God, this country is fucking ridiculous about sex. Look, lots of people think weird things are funny or sexy or both. There are people out there who would think your tastes were freaky, if they knew about them. Get over yourselves. Kozinski's only problem is being technologically inept.
What about letting a dog lick your balls? OK or not OK, morality police?
i think we need to move away from the pros and cons of sex with animals, and bring the topic back to what the hell Koz was thinking!
Depends on whether there's also rimming involved, 4:53.
4:35: *high five*
Both Kozinski and Posner endeavor to try one case per year. The schedules sometimes do not work out but they both try it. Posner's reasoning can be found in his interview on Bashman's site. Also, Kozinski's "funny" excuse is hilarious but not frivolous.
Both Kozinski and Posner endeavor to try one case per year. The schedules sometimes do not work out but they both try it. Posner's reasoning can be found in his interview on Bashman's site. Also, Kozinski's "funny" excuse is hilarious but not frivolous.
4:53: Yeah, but I'm not a high-profile conservative judge with lots of power. So, yes, it is a bit different.
3:17 said "The real issue here is that the Judge is quite literally sitting in judgment in a trial over whether similar porn (involving beastiality, etc) is legal."
Pssst! This is a jury case.
Somebody post a link to the cached Kozinski porn please!
4:53, that question was raised on Road Trip... I think the answer offered was that it's ok if it's *your dog.*
The other characters didn't say anything, perhaps because they were grossed out.
5:09 psst ... Judge can dismiss on the law.
I think this means he's a real libertarian.
What about this tidbit from the AP story:
"Asked how long they would have to watch the movies, Kozinski told them it would be about five hours and 'I will be there watching with you. This is part of the job we're doing.'"
Disappointing, Lat. You obviously held your fire.
Guys in my high school used to post videos of half-dressed men cavorting with sexually aroused farm animals all the time; it was no big deal.
Kozinski getting indicted on obscenity charges = total awesomeness.
The targeted Google ads with the LATimes article are kind of funny. Right now it's:
Top Plastic Surgeons
Labia Plastic Surgery
10 Rules to Cut Belly Fat
Cosmetic Specialist for Facial Implants
SmartLipo laser melts fat
5:09 -- I forgot that the bias of a judge makes no difference when presiding over a jury case, and that those evidentiary rulings and jury instructions are really trivial and never constitute reversible error. I'm sure when this judge sits on the COA he NEVER overturns a USDC order based on motions in limine, motions to suppress, objections, jury instructions, motions for directed verdict, and the like.
If I ever had any doubts that ATL has been overrun with adolescent males, they have been put to rest by this comment thread. (Seriously, compare the comments here with the general public's comments on the LAT site and you can see why people respect used car salesmen more than lawyers.)
And Lat's pulled punches over what should have been Judge of the Month (a mere day or week wouldn't have been enough) have seriously hurt this site's credibility.
Bye.
5:18: Pssst! Usually if a judge is going to dismiss on the law, he does so prior to voir dire. Sure he could grant a JMOL, but he's not going to.
5:38: Psst! You leapt from the fact of a strange photo collection to the conclusion "the bias of a judge." Are you still in law school?
5:43. Right, those LATimes commenters are much more sophisticated.
"1. It's no wonder our laws are so messed up. In ancient cultures (Israel, Persia, China, etc.) possession of anything like Kozinski's "art" would be capital offenses primarily because a society which permits such activities would ultimately destroy itself. Wake up! Your wicked legislators & governors have appointed even more wicked judges, and we all suffer because of it."
Seriously, Lat, way to bury the lede. Kozinski to Judge of the Day!
5:47: I never said they were sophisticated. But they do share a general sense of outrage at the judge's behavior as opposed to the large number of posters here who seem to think degrading women, using animals for sex and getting their jollies in other perverse ways is perfectly OK or even "normal." Perhaps a majority of male lawyers get off on similar stuff, but I seriously doubt if a majority of the general public does.
5:55 - WTF is wrong with Koz posting some dirty pictures online? Big f*ing deal. It's funny, maybe "scandalous" in the sense of a sharp departure from propriety, but what is there to be outraged about? What business is it of yours what Kozinski likes to jerk off to?
5:55, how about you list the contents of your porn collection? If you don't have anything a little risque or embarassing in there, then I feel sorry for your vanilla ass.
Thank you, 5:58 and 5:59, for proving my point nicely.
Thank you, 5:58 and 5:59, for proving my point nicely. Most women don't have hard-core porn collections.
there goes any hope of K-dog being appointed to the Supremes. Can you imagine the congressional trials on that one?
there goes any hope of K-dog being appointed to the Supremes. Can you imagine the congressional hearings on this one?
looks like from the wayback machine that AK had directories called Lewis&Clark, articles, and underneathmyrobe
He should clearly recuse himself--and then be prosecuted after the new judge rules that urination porn is illegal.
"Most women don't have hard-core porn collections."
Just like nice girls don't masturbate? Sure.
6:11, like I said, if your sex life is that vanilla then I feel sorry for you. But please don't resent the rest of us for enjoying life.
love,
5:59
No worries, 5:59. The donkeys and dogs are all yours. I'm not jealous. Honest.
I feel sorry for 6:11's boyfriend (if she's even socially adept enough to have one). But he'll find someone among the supposedly small minority of female porn-watchers fairly quickly after 6:11 refuses to incorporate ass-play into her toothy blowjobs.
6:11 has actually been happily married for 20 years. And the fact that your thinking has evolved only to the level of "boyfriend" and "girlfriend" tells me a lot about your age and experience.
So, 6:11/6:28, if the "dogs are all [mine]," then it doesn't matter what Kozinski does with his sex life either, right?
Something tells me your husband doesn't share your view on the happiness of the marriage.
"6:11 has actually been happily married for 20 years."
In other words, 6:11 hasn't had sex for 19 1/2 years-- though her husband likely has.
Kozinski = Judge of the Day
http://abovethelaw.com/2008/06/judge_of_the_day_alex_kozinski.php
Wow, sarcasm is lost on you, isn't it?
What he does behind closed doors doesn't affect me personally one way or the other. After all, I'm on the other side of the country. But that doesn't mean it's OK when the chief judge on the 9th Cir. COA shows himself to be a misogynistic pervert and then shrugs it off as "funny" and tries to pass it off as "not obscene."
6:35(1) and (2) once again prove my point that ATL has become the playpen of adolescent males.
I can only hope your attitudes will change once you're married and/or have a daughter of your own.
And we can only hope that your children have shorter sticks up their ass than you do.
The sad thing is, I think 6:11 is sincere. Women don't have porn collections? What century are you living in? Most of the women I've dated *star* in their porn collections.
This could explain why he was never nominated to the Supreme Court. After Ginsburg/Thomas, the vetting process might have turned up some interesting stuff, even aside from the articles and such that everyone knows about.
women painted like cows???
you sicko republiKKKans are a real hoot
I said most women don't have *hard-core* porn collections. Sex toys, role-playing, soft-core porn, sure. But not degrading hard-core porn of the type guys seem to get off on.
I think the main thing these comments prove is that male attorneys' self-esteem is so low that they only feel okay about themselves by pretending they have bizarre, dangerous, and potentially harmful sexual encounters on a regular basis. I guess this is kind of understandable, though -- really, you OUGHT to have low self-esteem when you're a pasty-faced basement-dwelling fatty who's lucky if he can get his dog to lick peanut butter off of his undescended testicles (which is probably why you're all so afraid of people who recognize this as animal abuse).
A handful of you are likely so fat that masturbating is risky in that it might cause you a heart attack. Most of the rest of you have erectile dysfunction caused by being a complete loser who hates women because the girls in the playground laughed at you when you declared that you were the King of the Monkey Bars and they all had to listen to you because you were such a big strong powerful He-Man.
In addition, most of you probably have so much back hair that you yourselves are often mistaken for animals -- which it what leads you to assume that animals must be as hard up for it as you are. Problem is, they aren't. Donkeys get way more action than pathetic little turds like you.
A few of you are still virgins, and the majority didn't lose their virginity before 21, at the youngest. And even then, it was to a large woman named Helga who you kind of suspected may have been a man at some point in her life.
You also secretly harbor fantasties of being ass-raped by herpetic AIDS patients. Don't try to deny it. Everyone knows men have rape fantasies.
And, since your neanderthal brains seem to think that what's shown in obscene hard-core porn is "normal" and "okay," it's likely you yourselves have engaged in some form of rape in the past. Probably the main reason you aren't in jail yet is because the prosecutor is too worried about you being held incompetent to stand trial, given your severe mental retardation.
When it comes down to it, we all know your deep dark secret: the reason you think it's okay to degrade women and abuse animals is because you learned everything you know about sex from your hairy, smelly, whorey mothers, and practiced on your cross-eyed, buck-toothed sisters, a couple of whom are also your daughters.
Also, you all have teh gay.
(Am I missing anything? I think I mostly captured the maturity level of about 95% of the male posters).
You know, 7:22, I agree with the substance of your position 100%. But that just wasn't very funny. Shame too, since it looks like you spent quite a bit of time on it.
I fucked 7:07's husband. He was as mediocre as her dog.
7:03, I don't think Kozinski was ever going to get nominated for the same reason that I doubt that Posner ever had a strong chance of a Supreme Court nomination. They are brilliant but they are loose cannons; the trend is to pick nominees who are likely to vote predictably in a way amenable to the views of the nominating administration. Even if there are examples of nominees who turned out to be unpleasant surprises to the presidents who nominated them, I suspect most administrations would view a Kozinski or a Posner as a bull that would be almost certain to knock over a lot of stuff in the china shop. They have both written so extensively that the "vetting process" would not only be difficult but virtually impossible. There's no way people could just read everything a Kozinski or Posner has written off the bench, let alone on the bench.
And 7:22, that was kind of over the top, but I have to respectfully disagree with 7:29--it was funny (the less ticked-off-sounding parts, anyway). Then again, my maturity level may not be in the top 5 percent of male posters, so what do I know?
My concern is that under the liberal standards for disqualification, a reasonable person might entertain a doubt about Kozinski's impartiality on the issue of is the material obscene.
Not at all because some of the images wound up on the judge's family server, but because Kozinski publicly expressed tacit and express opinions about the material--saying he thought some of it was funny and that other images were “inappropriate".
If the issue of whether those images meet the constitutional or statutory definition of obscenity, or whether some of the images were mere humor/parody, then a reasonable person might doubt judicial impartiality.
The test is whether a person might entertain a doubt, and not whether Kozinski has in fact made up his mind.
6:43, having a kinky porn collection doesn't make one a misogynistic pervert. In fact, calling him a pervert says nothing about Kozinski and everything about you, because "pervert" only means that the person applying the label has a moral problem with the "pervert's" behavior. No one really cares about your moral judgment of Kozinski.
Further, you shouldn't be shocked at the position of the posters on this website. It just means that the more educated a person is, the less he or she is likely to hold Puritanical beliefs about sexuality.
7:29, I wasn't trying to be funny. It was a last-ditch attempt to get through the thick skulls here and make them see how their comments seem. The only way I could think to do that was to throw a bunch of immature insults out and see if anything stuck. I mean, they have to have nerves to hit *somewhere*.
I guess I was reacting to the tired old tropes that get trotted out whenever someone objects to putting women down -- e.g., you must be ugly, you must be terrible in bed, you must be a shrew, you have no sense of humor, I hope you get raped, etc. I was trying to think of things that might be similarly insulting to them. Fire with fire, as it were, since they never respond to actual logic.
If a dog is licking peanut butter off my balls, presumably that's because, you know, the dog *wants* to lick peanut butter off my balls... because it enjoys licking peanut butter off my balls. I fail to see the abuse here.
Conversely, when a dog starts humping my leg, is it abusing me?
@5:45: Really? You think just because it is "unlikely" that a judge won't grant a JMOL that it shouldn't matter if he's biased? What about those evidentiary rulings and jury instructions? They never constitute reversible error?
If you're going to argue that having photos of beastiality doesn't make him biased when presiding over a trial as to whether photos of beastiality are legal, fine. But don't try to summarily dismiss the importance of entire procedural bodies of law, or pretend that the work that USDC judges do each and every time they preside over a jury trial is legally insignificant or unimportant.
6:47,
As for me, I'm hoping that they never get married and never have daughters. . . . .
I think the real question here, the one burning in our minds, is whether Kozinski had two-girls-one-cup . . .
I instantly recognized both the photo and video described. They have been around for years and can be seen on hundreds of websites. I first saw the video on a television reality show. So how can a video that was broadcast on TV years ago be pornography???
some pics from the kozinski website and the drectory listing is here:
http://patterico.com/2008/06/12/exclusive-kozinskis-porn-images-from-judge-alex-kozinskis-web-site/
according to much of the "logic" being tossed around in these comments, the judges sitting on the various "Ulysses" trials should have recused themselves if they were familiar with Modern literature. i'm not a huge fan of koz, but i hope stays the course on this one.
12:23, it's nothing like that. It's like a judge who smokes recreational pot presiding over a trial testing the legitimacy of various federal drug prohibitions.
3:22,
No, it's not like that at all, because none of Koz's pics were remotely obscene.
4:34, Says who? Have those images been subject to a ruling that they are not obscene?
Hes just another Wacko Liberal Pervert who has no moral compass or values and would have all the freaks running around the world spreading their filth and diseases if left up to him! Lets see TRUE justice come about and see him lose his job! The Senators who would not allow Bork to be confirmed for videos he rented in his "past" needs to come down on this out of control, poor excuse for a responsible judge!!!!
Actually, Kozinski is not liberal. He's a fellow FedSoc member. He just has a really great (tongue-in-cheek / irreverent) sense of humor.
Go read one of his opinions some time. (Actually if you've had ConLaw or Evidence, there's a decent chance you already have.)