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You are here: Home / Politics / I Guess We Can Rule Out A Supreme Court Appointment

I Guess We Can Rule Out A Supreme Court Appointment

by John Cole|  June 11, 20082:43 pm| 41 Comments

This post is in: Politics, General Stupidity

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Stupid:

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.”

Judge Kozinski, if you will remember, is the fellow who issued the scathing dissent in the US v Ramirez-Lopez (.pdf) that was so effective that even though the government won the appeal, they dropped the case. More here on Kozinski.

As a side note, I really don’t care what kind of freaky porn people are into, but if you are in public office you should probably know better than to do stuff like this. Even by accident.

*** Update ***

I do like this quote, though:

Kozinski told the LAT that he didn’t think any of the material he posted on his website would qualify as obscene. “Is it prurient? I don’t know what to tell you,” he said. “I think it’s odd and interesting. It’s part of life.”

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Reader Interactions

41Comments

  1. 1.

    4tehlulz

    June 11, 2008 at 2:49 pm

    Judge /b/tard.

  2. 2.

    RSA

    June 11, 2008 at 2:51 pm

    Oh, well. Something less surprising from the article:

    Kozinski, who was named chief judge of the 9th Circuit last year, is considered a judicial conservative on most issues. He was appointed to the federal bench by then-President Ronald Reagan in 1985.

  3. 3.

    slippy hussein toad

    June 11, 2008 at 2:56 pm

    What he said:

    Kozinski told the LAT that he didn’t think any of the material he posted on his website would qualify as obscene. “Is it prurient? I don’t know what to tell you,” he said. “I think it’s odd and interesting. It’s part of life.”

    What I heard:

    Kozinski told the LAT that “Laws are for little people. Fuck little people. I can do whatever I want, ’cause I’m the JUDGE, bitches!”

    That’s all I need to hear.

  4. 4.

    JGabriel

    June 11, 2008 at 2:57 pm

    LA Times:

    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.

    Kind of raises the question of how the LAT (or whoever raised the charge) knew where to look.

    .

  5. 5.

    Jess

    June 11, 2008 at 3:00 pm

    After reading more about him, I think this is just a part of his iconoclastic attitude. I don’t mind perverts–just hypocrites, and he doesn’t seem to be hypocritical about this.

  6. 6.

    Adam

    June 11, 2008 at 3:01 pm

    C’mon, it’s the 9th Circuit, posting fetish porn is practically prudish

  7. 7.

    Dreggas

    June 11, 2008 at 3:02 pm

    Ya know, reading those comments over there I just have to shake my head at all the WATB puritans getting the vapors. Then again I am a proudly perverted denizen of the dark pit of Hell known as the west coast where we steal all the virgins and corrupt all the morals. That being said…BFD. There’s no crime committed here and any of that stuff is accessible on a lot of sites. His big crime, his service provider for his web site apparently allows directory browsing.

  8. 8.

    cleek

    June 11, 2008 at 3:05 pm

    a half-dressed man cavorting with a sexually aroused farm animal

    activism!

  9. 9.

    theturtlemoves

    June 11, 2008 at 3:05 pm

    Not to out myself as a perv or anything, but based on the descriptions, I’m pretty sure I’ve seen both those photos and the video clip floating around the Web. The video, if it is what I’m thinking, was of some poor fat guy getting assaulted by an obviously aroused donkey and his pants kept falling down. It made the rounds of corporate emails everywhere a few years ago. If that’s something worth writing an LAT article about, it must have been a really slow news day.

  10. 10.

    The Moar You Know

    June 11, 2008 at 3:05 pm

    Kozinski is presiding over a district-level obscenity trial right now:

    Embedded link to AP story

    So this is a very interesting development. I must say, I hope he doesn’t get in any trouble over this, I always liked the guy. Wrote one of the best 2nd Amendment opinions I’ve ever read.

  11. 11.

    slippy hussein toad

    June 11, 2008 at 3:07 pm

    I think this is just a part of his iconoclastic attitude. I don’t mind perverts—just hypocrites, and he doesn’t seem to be hypocritical about this.

    He’s trying to pass this off as some sort of mavericky behavior, but as well all know, conservative “mavericks” are really just elitist assholes who think they are above the law. Even ones they themselves write, or are required to uphold.

  12. 12.

    Punchy

    June 11, 2008 at 3:17 pm

    video of a half-dressed man cavorting with a sexually aroused farm animal.

    Uh….hmmmm….this is…errr…uhhh….a little wierd, no?

  13. 13.

    Dreggas

    June 11, 2008 at 3:21 pm

    Punchy Says:

    video of a half-dressed man cavorting with a sexually aroused farm animal.

    Uh….hmmmm….this is…errr…uhhh….a little wierd, no?

    Honestly, given the miracle of teh interwebs….nope, not no more. This is where I say if you don’t like something, don’t look. Not that I approve of the stuff in question it’s just the fact that it is really no one’s f’in business.

  14. 14.

    PeterJ

    June 11, 2008 at 3:22 pm

    Kind of raises the question of how the LAT (or whoever raised the charge) knew where to look.

    It’s rather simple.

    He had his essays and other things in a directory on his site.

    http://www.site.com/directory/essay1.pdf

    then someone decided to try to list the content in the directory by doing this

    http://www.site.com/directory/

    and since the server allowed it, the rest of the files could also be found.

    And then that person decided to talk to the press.

    I highly doubt that that person was expecting to find what he found.

  15. 15.

    theturtlemoves

    June 11, 2008 at 3:26 pm

    I give you: half-dressed man cavorting with an aroused farm animal. From that horrible den of perversion, SpikeTV. Based on the judge’s reaction and the description, I’m thinking this is the video in question and the writer took some poetic license in using the word “cavorting.”

  16. 16.

    Dreggas

    June 11, 2008 at 3:26 pm

    Oh now this should definitely Up teh funny

  17. 17.

    Nick

    June 11, 2008 at 3:29 pm

    I’m sure there’s some context here … that said, Kozinski is a conservative but not doctrinaire as far as I’ve seen. I’m a legal editor and have read some of his opinions. He doesn’t roll over for corporations, I know that. His dissent in the Consumers Union case against Suzuki a few years back was classic.

  18. 18.

    w vincentz

    June 11, 2008 at 3:30 pm

    If that half-dressed personwas involved with a horny goat in the morning, we now know about whatever happened to the IQx2 guy.

  19. 19.

    Zifnab

    June 11, 2008 at 3:33 pm

    After reading John Stewart’s America: The Book, I have a hard time looking at Supreme Court Justices without picturing them naked. Really, this can’t hurt his chances in my eyes.

  20. 20.

    jake

    June 11, 2008 at 3:33 pm

    No, this is exactly the type of abortion loving family hating judge the professional virgin ravisher and conservative professor restrainer Barack “Luv Machine” Obama will put on the Supreme Court if we don’t vote for … vote for um … the other guy. What’s his name.

    Putin. Yeah.

  21. 21.

    Faux News

    June 11, 2008 at 3:37 pm

    I’m gonna have to agree with the Chief Judge in that indeed “porn is a part of life” :-)

  22. 22.

    Tsulagi

    June 11, 2008 at 3:37 pm

    Kind of raises the question of how the LAT (or whoever raised the charge) knew where to look.

    I dunno, his really sneaky site address of alex.kozinski.com might have been a starting point.

    Some people should not be playing with or on the tubes.

  23. 23.

    Jess

    June 11, 2008 at 3:43 pm

    He’s trying to pass this off as some sort of mavericky behavior, but as well all know, conservative “mavericks” are really just elitist assholes who think they are above the law. Even ones they themselves write, or are required to uphold.

    This kind of generalization isn’t useful. Do you have any evidence that Kozinski is trying to censor what he himself is enjoying? The post said he is presiding over an obscenity trial, not prosecuting. From what little I know about him he appears to be libertarian in deed as well as in attitude–for example, defending flag-burners. Maybe he is an asshole, but why not give him the benefit of the doubt until you have some evidence?

  24. 24.

    Stignitz

    June 11, 2008 at 3:45 pm

    I’m not sure you’re aware, but Kozinski is a — perhaps THE — badass superstar appellate judge. He marches to his own beat, is incredibly influential, always sends at least two of his three clerks to the Supreme Court, and is an absolute household name among law professors and students. He is a little kooky, but consciously so; he is a guy with nothing left to prove who is not gunning for the high court, so he has fun. I say more power to him.

    I’m also really happy that he’s presiding over this case, since it means the site in question is likely to survive. (Kozinski is an ardent defender of the First Amendment.)

  25. 25.

    whiskey

    June 11, 2008 at 3:45 pm

    I’m pretty sure that Judge Kozinski is pretty aware of the tubes.

  26. 26.

    whiskey

    June 11, 2008 at 3:57 pm

    more

    In another long-running dispute, Kozinski butted heads with court administrators at the Ninth Circuit and the Judicial Conference who had placed Internet filters on judicial computers in an effort, they said, to stop pornography downloads and Napster-style music file sharing. Those practices, the administrators complained following an investigation, accounted for an enormous increase in bandwidth used by courts nationwide.
    Kozinski responded to the administrators publicly. In op-ed articles published by the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times, he called out the bureaucrats by name and blasted what he termed their intrusion on judicial privacy. Then in 2001, he entered a computer room in San Francisco where Internet communications were funneled to the Eighth, Ninth, and Tenth circuits and personally disabled the filters. Called to task by outraged court administrators, Kozinski survived a close censure vote by the Judicial Conference.

  27. 27.

    jibeaux

    June 11, 2008 at 3:58 pm

    As a woman, I don’t really approve of demeaning women-as-cows porn, but as a lawyer, that was a hell of a dissent.

    He actually sounds like quite a character, looking over that Reason article briefly. But an alleged libertarian defending the Kelo decision, that’s just plain weird.

  28. 28.

    Aaron

    June 11, 2008 at 4:22 pm

    There’s a line where things are ‘none of your god damned business’ and also ‘my personal life is none of your concern’

  29. 29.

    Tsulagi

    June 11, 2008 at 4:32 pm

    I’m pretty sure that Judge Kozinski is pretty aware of the tubes.

    Seems this judge also was pretty aware of a tube under his robe.

    Judges Gone Wild!

  30. 30.

    Brachiator

    June 11, 2008 at 4:34 pm

    JGabriel Says:

    LA Times:

    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.

    Kind of raises the question of how the LAT (or whoever raised the charge) knew where to look.

    Not too long ago, the LA Times was able to get into supposedly private areas of the governor’s web site to get access to audio files of speeches and other material that some thought might be embarrassing, but which largely turned out to be much ado about nothing.

    It appears that many other government sites are laid out similarly, and have similar vulnerabilities.

    I don’t really approve of demeaning women-as-cows porn…

    Yes, the whole thing is udderly distasteful.

  31. 31.

    Xanthippas

    June 11, 2008 at 4:34 pm

    I’m sending my judicial clerkship application to the fella right now.

  32. 32.

    Steve V

    June 11, 2008 at 4:58 pm

    Kozinski is indeed a very influential Ninth Circuit judge. He’s conservative, but interesting and definitely not doctrinaire and is very smart. Quirky too. I recall when I was in law school hearing about an opinion he supposedly wrote that had an ungodly number of references to Talking Heads songs in it … never made the effort to track it down. Eugene Volokh is close friends with him, fwiw.

  33. 33.

    HyperIon

    June 11, 2008 at 5:03 pm

    i’m more interested in Bobby Jindal and exorcisms.

  34. 34.

    KG

    June 11, 2008 at 5:30 pm

    I’ve had the opportunity to meet Judge Kozinski while in law school, and on at least one occasion it involved adult beverages. I can safely say that he is not an elitist asshole. As a lawyer I’ve read a lot of his cases and he’s arguably the best jurist among the ranks of federal judges.

  35. 35.

    Barbara

    June 11, 2008 at 6:04 pm

    Kozinski is a libertarian. I had a friend who clerked for him.

  36. 36.

    Pooh

    June 11, 2008 at 6:15 pm

    I hope he ends up ok. Despite being “conservative” (I guess) he really is an excellent jurist. If I remember correctly, I think he handled the Unibomber trial, which was funny because Kacyinsky-Kozinski. Maybe not hah-hah funny…

  37. 37.

    slippy hussein toad

    June 11, 2008 at 7:53 pm

    I’ve had the opportunity to meet Judge Kozinski while in law school, and on at least one occasion it involved adult beverages. I can safely say that he is not an elitist asshole. As a lawyer I’ve read a lot of his cases and he’s arguably the best jurist among the ranks of federal judges.

    Read his statement again. Is that or is that not a bullshit attempt to evade the obvious conclusion that he’s thwacking his dong to the pr0n like any other human being, whilst simultaneously presiding over a trial where he’s going to be forced to judge what is obscene?

    Regardless of whether he may or may not be an excellent jurist, in this case he is clearly caught red-handed (literally) with the goods — the same one’s he’s about to rule on. And he’s got no fucking clue how to explain it.

  38. 38.

    Jess

    June 11, 2008 at 8:36 pm

    Is that or is that not a bullshit attempt to evade the obvious conclusion that he’s thwacking his dong to the pr0n like any other human being, whilst simultaneously presiding over a trial where he’s going to be forced to judge what is obscene?

    You gotta problem with porn?

    If the barnyard escapades clip is the one someone upthread linked to, it’s hilarious but not at all the sort of thing one would wank off to. Well, maybe the Marx brothers would. And someone who has a sense of humor and no problem with porn is EXACTLY the kind of judge I would want presiding over an obscenity trial–they’re much more likely to be open minded and anti-censorship.

  39. 39.

    Liz

    June 11, 2008 at 10:25 pm

    Sounds like it’d be a shame to lose this judge over something this idiotic. Any other judge who says he’s never looked at porn is f’ing lying. At least this guy is owning up.

  40. 40.

    PeterJ

    June 12, 2008 at 5:43 am

    i’m more interested in Bobby Jindal and exorcisms.

    He can exorcise skin cancer away. I bet that’s a plus when picking a VP for McCain.

  41. 41.

    Barbara

    June 12, 2008 at 8:01 am

    I don’t have a problem with porn but I have a big problem when porn is used as an excuse to harass people whose business you don’t like. What this shows in dramatic, neon relief is that porn laws are intended to punish specific classes of people, not behavior.

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