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9th Circuit's chief judge (1 Viewer)

Mr. Chumley

Footballguy
So this guy is head of what has to be the most liberal group of judges in the country and is presiding over an obscenity trial in Los Angeles. Turns out he keeps sexually explicit photos and videos on his website.

'Among the photos and videos was a photo of naked women on all fours painted to look like cows, a video of a half-dressed man cavorting with a sexually aroused farm animal, a graphic step-by-step pictorial in which a woman is seen shaving her pubic hair, images of masturbation, public sex and contortionist sex, 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.' LINK

What a dunder head of course with some of the rulings coming out of there nothing surprises me.

case he is presiding over

When talking to jurors he was quoted as saying "I will be there watching with you. This is part of the job we're doing". I'm sure you will

 
So this guy is head of what has to be the most liberal group of judges in the country and is presiding over an obscenity trial in Los Angeles. Turns out he keeps sexually explicit photos and videos on his website.

'Among the photos and videos was a photo of naked women on all fours painted to look like cows, a video of a half-dressed man cavorting with a sexually aroused farm animal, a graphic step-by-step pictorial in which a woman is seen shaving her pubic hair, images of masturbation, public sex and contortionist sex, 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.' LINK

What a dunder head of course with some of the rulings coming out of there nothing surprises me.

case he is presiding over

When talking to jurors he was quoted as saying "I will be there watching with you. This is part of the job we're doing". I'm sure you will
The jurors will have to watch the bench for any signs of suspicious movement.
 
So this guy is head of what has to be the most liberal group of judges in the country and is presiding over an obscenity trial in Los Angeles. Turns out he keeps sexually explicit photos and videos on his website.

'Among the photos and videos was a photo of naked women on all fours painted to look like cows, a video of a half-dressed man cavorting with a sexually aroused farm animal, a graphic step-by-step pictorial in which a woman is seen shaving her pubic hair, images of masturbation, public sex and contortionist sex, 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.' LINK

What a dunder head of course with some of the rulings coming out of there nothing surprises me.

case he is presiding over

When talking to jurors he was quoted as saying "I will be there watching with you. This is part of the job we're doing". I'm sure you will
I'm sure he can separate his need to display public pictures of personal sexual fetishes from his judicial judgement on what is obscene and what isn't.
 
At least according to archive.org (and the Wayback Machine), his site hasn't been around since 2005 (well, hasn't been archived since then). Wonder why this is coming up now. :blackdot:

 
So this guy is head of what has to be the most liberal group of judges in the country and is presiding over an obscenity trial in Los Angeles.
Dirty liberal scum.
He was appointed to the federal bench by then-President Ronald Reagan in 1985.
:shrug: As if who he was appointed by affects in any way what he actually is. You're really making no sense today, even less than normal.
 
Interesting article by Erwin Chemerinsky, who many of the lawyers and law students will recognize. Granted, it's a few years old, but there hasn't been much turnover.

9th Circuit may not be that liberal, after all. Go figure.

 
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Interesting article by Erwin Chemerinsky, who many of the lawyers and law students will recognize. Granted, it's a few years old, but there hasn't been much turnover.

9th Circuit may not be that liberal, after all. Go figure.
:wall: And this is coming from one of the most outspoken liberal law professors in America.

 
Alex Kozinski is a well respected judge.

Anyone who thinks he is liberal, though, is nuts. He is a very well-known, very conservative federal judge.

 
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Interesting article by Erwin Chemerinsky, who many of the lawyers and law students will recognize. Granted, it's a few years old, but there hasn't been much turnover.

9th Circuit may not be that liberal, after all. Go figure.
:no: And this is coming from one of the most outspoken liberal law professors in America.
don't know how that matters. his politics don't have an effect on the makeup of the court or the decisions that have been reviewed by the Supreme Court. Their reversal rate is identical. The number of liberal and conservative judges on the court are nearly equal, with most being moderates. his point, quite correctly, is that the makeup of the panel is the luck of the draw.
 
So this guy is head of what has to be the most liberal group of judges in the country and is presiding over an obscenity trial in Los Angeles.
Dirty liberal scum.
He was appointed to the federal bench by then-President Ronald Reagan in 1985.
:no: As if who he was appointed by affects in any way what he actually is. You're really making no sense today, even less than normal.
he's pretty much as conservative as they come. Reinhardt's the notorious liberal on the court.
 
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So this guy is head of what has to be the most liberal group of judges in the country and is presiding over an obscenity trial in Los Angeles.
Dirty liberal scum.
He was appointed to the federal bench by then-President Ronald Reagan in 1985.
:no: As if who he was appointed by affects in any way what he actually is. You're really making no sense today, even less than normal.
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.
Also:
He has a national reputation for a brilliant legal mind and has developed a reputation as a champion of the First Amendment right to freedom of speech and expression. Several years ago, for example, after learning that appeals court administrators had placed filters on computers that denied access to pornography and other materials, Kozinski led a successful effort to have the filters removed.
Now we know why. :own3d:
 
I might have to go back and reread that opinion where he name dropped like 200 movie titles. I might have missed Buffy the Vampire Layer or something.

 
Alex Kozinski is a well respected judge.Anyone who thinks he is liberal, though, is nuts. He is a very well-known, very conservative federal judge.
I think he defines himself as a libertarian. Maybe he's a liberaltarian?He wrote opinions in a couple interesting (and famous) cases, the "Barbie Girl" trademark case, and a dissenting opinion in the the Vanna White right of publicity one.
 
Alex Kozinski is a well respected judge.

Anyone who thinks he is liberal, though, is nuts. He is a very well-known, very conservative federal judge.
I think he defines himself as a libertarian. Maybe he's a liberaltarian?He wrote opinions in a couple interesting (and famous) cases, the "Barbie Girl" trademark case, and a dissenting opinion in the the Vanna White right of publicity one.
He definitely has some libertarian instincts. So does Clarence Thomas. But in a world divided into left and right, Kozinski is strongly and unmistakably identified with the right. (Called "conservative" here, here, here, here, here, etc.)
 
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More background on Kozinski here

He's been considered for the SC:

President George H.W. Bush seriously considered nominating Kozinski for high court openings in 1990 and 1991, though the jurist hasn't received the same considerations from the current Bush administration.
 
Interesting article by Erwin Chemerinsky, who many of the lawyers and law students will recognize. Granted, it's a few years old, but there hasn't been much turnover.

9th Circuit may not be that liberal, after all. Go figure.
ha, listening to that ####er right now - chemerinsky is notoriously really liberal though so it may be a matter of perspective
 
It doesn't really matter what his political leaning is. Any judge that felt the need to publicly display fecal based pornography on his website is going to have a hard time fairly judging an obscenity case that involves fecal based pornography.

 
It doesn't really matter what his political leaning is. Any judge that felt the need to publicly display fecal based pornography on his website is going to have a hard time fairly judging an obscenity case that involves fecal based pornography.
the test is pretty well setup - don't see why he simply can't apply it regardless of what he does in his private life
 
So this guy is head of what has to be the most liberal group of judges in the country and is presiding over an obscenity trial in Los Angeles.
Dirty liberal scum.
He was appointed to the federal bench by then-President Ronald Reagan in 1985.
:goodposting: As if who he was appointed by affects in any way what he actually is. You're really making no sense today, even less than normal.
he's pretty much as conservative as they come. Reinhardt's the notorious liberal on the court.
When I read the thread title, I just assumed it was Reinhardt. It was quite a shock when I clicked through and saw it was Kozinski. He's the most quoted conservative judge on the 9th Circuit, and I'm really having a hard time thinking of another non-Supreme Court judge who is more well-known.
 
Kozinski told The Times that he began saving the sexually explicit materials and other items of interest on his website years ago."People send me stuff like this all the time," he said.In turn, he said, he occasionally passes on items he finds interesting or funny to others.Among the sexually explicit material on his site that he defended as humorous were two photos. In one, a young man is bent over in a chair and performing fellatio on himself. In the other, two women are sitting in what appears to be a cafe with their skirts hiked up to reveal their pubic hair and genitalia. Behind them is a sign reading "Bush for President.""That is a funny joke," Kozinski said.The judge said he planned to delete some of the most objectionable 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.
 
When I read the thread title, I just assumed it was Reinhardt. It was quite a shock when I clicked through and saw it was Kozinski. He's the most quoted conservative judge on the 9th Circuit, and I'm really having a hard time thinking of another non-Supreme Court judge who is more well-known.
Posner?
 
When I read the thread title, I just assumed it was Reinhardt. It was quite a shock when I clicked through and saw it was Kozinski. He's the most quoted conservative judge on the 9th Circuit, and I'm really having a hard time thinking of another non-Supreme Court judge who is more well-known.
Posner?
Of course. I probably blocked him from my mind because any time I have to read one of his decisions I know I'm going to have to go through it at least three times, with a break for bashing my head against the wall.
 
So this guy is head of what has to be the most liberal group of judges in the country and is presiding over an obscenity trial in Los Angeles.
Dirty liberal scum.
He was appointed to the federal bench by then-President Ronald Reagan in 1985.
:kicksrock: As if who he was appointed by affects in any way what he actually is. You're really making no sense today, even less than normal.
he's pretty much as conservative as they come. Reinhardt's the notorious liberal on the court.
When I read the thread title, I just assumed it was Reinhardt. It was quite a shock when I clicked through and saw it was Kozinski. He's the most quoted conservative judge on the 9th Circuit, and I'm really having a hard time thinking of another non-Supreme Court judge who is more well-known.
Richard Posner down?
 
At least according to archive.org (and the Wayback Machine), his site hasn't been around since 2005 (well, hasn't been archived since then). Wonder why this is coming up now. :lmao:
The host site had a secret directory that was not visible to the public (and probably not archived by the archive.org trackers).
 
This thread is like when people post William Safire editorials and claim "See? Even the ultra-liberal New York Times thinks such-and-such liberal idea/person/place is ridiculous!"

 
So this guy is head of what has to be the most liberal group of judges in the country and is presiding over an obscenity trial in Los Angeles.
Dirty liberal scum.
He was appointed to the federal bench by then-President Ronald Reagan in 1985.
:P As if who he was appointed by affects in any way what he actually is. You're really making no sense today, even less than normal.
he's pretty much as conservative as they come. Reinhardt's the notorious liberal on the court.
When I read the thread title, I just assumed it was Reinhardt. It was quite a shock when I clicked through and saw it was Kozinski. He's the most quoted conservative judge on the 9th Circuit, and I'm really having a hard time thinking of another non-Supreme Court judge who is more well-known.
Richard Posner down?
Only in that one picture. In the other he's sort of sideways next to a goat.
 
An email from Alex Kozniski's wife:

Mr. Frey:

My name is Marcy Tiffany. I have been married to Alex Kozinski for over thirty years and we have raised three sons together. First, let me thank you for making the effort to discover the truth about what happened, and for giving me an opportunity to respond to the stories that have been circulating about Alex.

Turning to the facts of the matter, the LA Times story, authored by Scott Glover, is riddled with half-truths, gross mischaracterizations and outright lies. One significant mischaracterization is that Alex was maintaining some kind of “website” to which he posted pornographic material.

Obviously, Glover’s use of the word “website” was intended to convey a false image of a carefully designed and maintained graphical interface, with text, pictures, sound and hyperlinks, such as businesses maintain or that individuals can set up on Facebook, rather than a bunch of random files located in one of many folders stored on our family’s file server. The “server” is actually just another home computer that sits next to my desk in our home office, and that we use to store files, perform back-ups, and route the Internet to the family network. It has no graphical interface, but if you know the precise location of a file, you can access it either from one of the home computers or remotely.

Using the term “website” also gives the impression that Alex was actively aware of all of the material, when, in fact, it had accumulated over a number of years and he didn’t even remember that some of that stuff had been stored there or whether it had been put there by him or one of our sons, who also have access to the server.

Glover also wrote that “the sexually explicit material on the site was extensive.” In fact, of the several hundred items in the “stuff” folder, the vast majority was cute, amusing, and not in the least bit sexual in nature. For example, there’s a program that lets you build a snowman (no private parts involved). There’s a “stress reliever” that lets you take a virtual hammer to your desktop (which I’ve been using a lot lately). There’s a picture of freshly painted double-yellow lines that go right over road kill, with the caption “not my job award.” There’s something called “cool juggle” that shows a video of a guy juggling who drops a ball outside the frame and becomes a stick figure when he goes to pick it up. There are over 300 individual items in the “stuff” folder, the vast majority of which are of this nature. In addition, this folder contains about a half-dozen items that, while humorous, also have some kind of sexual aspect. Most of these you have already identified on your website.

I would note that in addition to the “stuff” folder, which Alex and my sons used to store a hodge-podge of miscellaneous humorous items, we use to the server to store several dozen other folders that contain a lot of personal material. For example, there is a folder that has copies of papers my kids have written in school. There is another folder that has family photos. There is a folder that has copies of articles that Alex has written. Obviously, the advantage of using a server is so that we can access the material from other computers and also send family members and friends links that will allow them to see a specific item in a folder. For example, this allows me to send links to my sisters so that they can see the latest photo of our grandchild.

This brings us to another falsity in the LA Times article. The reporter describes the handful of comic-sexual items as follows: “the sexually explicit material on the site was extensive.” He then includes graphic descriptions that make the material sound like hard-core porn when, in fact, it is more accurately described as raunchy humor.

One especially egregious misrepresentation is that there was a “video of a half-dressed man cavorting with a sexually aroused farm animal.” In subsequent articles, including one in the S.F. Chronicle, this has been described as a “bestiality” video. In fact, as you reveal on your Blog, it is a widely available video of a man trying to relieve himself a field when he is attacked by a donkey he fights off with one hand while trying to hold up his pants with the other. I would note that there is a version of this video on YouTube that apparently aired on the Fox channel. Crude and juvenile, for sure, but not by any stretch of the imagination is it bestiality. The fact is, Alex is not into porn - he is into funny – and sometimes funny has a sexual character.

The tiny percentage of the material that was sexual in nature was all of a humorous character. For example, the “women’s crotches” was one of the many “camel toe” series that is widely available on the net. The insidious effect of these misleading descriptions is that even many of those who have come to Alex’s defense have expressed the view that judges are entitled to look at “porn” if they choose, as if that’s what was really going on here, when it is not.

I think that there is another very important piece of this story that has not received the attention it deserves, and that is the role of Cyrus Sanai.

Cyrus Sanai, a disgruntled attorney/litigant, has widely claimed credit for engineering this smear campaign. In a 2005 decision, District Judge Zilly USDC Western District Seattle, describes Sanai’s conduct in a case before him as “an indescribable abuse of the legal process, unlike anything this Judge has experienced in more than 17 years on the bench and 26 years in private practice: outrageous, disrespectful, and in bad faith.”

Judge Zilly references a decision by LA Superior Court Judge Elizabeth Grimes where she describes Sanai’s conduct in a different lawsuit as follows: “Plaintiff has proliferated needless, baseless pleadings that now occupy about 15 volumes of Superior Court files, not to mention the numerous briefs submitted in the course of the forays into the Court of Appeal and attempts to get before the Supreme Court, and not one pleading appears to have had substantial merit. The genesis of this lawsuit, and the unwarranted grief and expense it has spawned, are an outrage.”

Washington State Superior Court Judge Joseph A. Thibodeau also had a run-in with Sanai, who harassed him to the point that he had to recuse himself from Sanai’s case. I believe you have a copy of the transcript of that hearing. (You may want to link to Overlawyered.com which has some additional details about how Sanai’s conduct).

Sanai wrote a vicious attack against the Ninth Circuit panel (Judges Leavy, Gould and Clifton) that ruled against his efforts to get the federal court to take jurisdiction over his parents’ ugly divorce case. You can read his vitriol at www.ninthcircuit.us (a website obviously designed so that people trying to find the Ninth Circuit website would stumble on his page instead).

Alex, who did not participate in the decision, wrote a public defense of the panel, and thus made himself a target. Sanai apparently made it his mission to retaliate against Alex. He managed to access our private computer and copy these files, which he then shopped around to reporters for months. Finally, he got the LA Times reporter to print the story that set off this firestorm. Sanai not only admits his involvement in all this – he brags about it.

As to how Sanai accessed our server and was able to rummage through our personal files, frankly we are still trying figure it out. Apparently, if a person is able to find a link to an item in the “stuff” file, and he knows what he is doing, it is possible for him to reverse engineer his way into other items stored in that file without our knowledge or consent. Although we typically would only send links to friends and family – who would be unlikely to do such a thing and who would certainly not try to injure us with what they found if they did – it is possible that a link to something in the “stuff” file became public, and Sanai used it to access the other material stored there. Moreover, since there wasn’t anything that remotely resembles a “collection of porn” stored there, we didn’t pay as much attention to the security risks as we obviously should have.

This is a sad and dangerous lesson to anyone who dares to stand on principle and publicly speak out against people like Cyrus Sanai, who are willing to stop at nothing to wreak his petty vengeance on a good and decent man like my husband. It is even more disturbing that Sanai, who is a member of the bar and an officer of the court, can get away with attacking judge after judge after judge, in this fashion.

It is also an indictment of Scott Glover and the LA Times, who are willing to knowingly distort the facts and with cavalier disregard of the injury they are causing to the reputation of a brilliant and distinguished jurist, in order to sell a few newspapers. And then, of course, there are the bevy of other purportedly respectable publications such as the San Francisco Chronicle, that are willing to repeat Mr. Glover’s story, while adding embellishments and further mischaracterizations along the way. This is apparently what now substitutes for responsible journalism.

While I’m on the topic of responsible journalism, it has recently come to light that the LA Times learned about this material months ago, and sat on it until it would do the maximum damage. Selecting the jury was a very grueling undertaking. Over 150 potential jurors were screened for hour after painful hour on Monday and Tuesday. Scores of men and women took the trip into the jury box, only to leave soon thereafter because they confessed themselves unable to view the materials. A number of others disclosed embarrassing facts about themselves and their families in order to explain why they could not sit on this jury. It was a difficult and painful process for just about everyone who was called into the jury box. Finally, after considering 109 members of the panel, a jury was selected and sworn at the end of the day on Tuesday. And Glover was present in court while all this was going on, biding his time. Only on Wednesday, after the jury had started to hear the case – and jeopardy had attached – did the LA Times choose to “break” its story.

A newspaper – especially a major newspaper as the Los Angeles Times purports to be – is supposed to be a responsible member of the community, not a predator. If the presence of certain files on a judge’s computer is a truly a newsworthy matter, it would have been so months earlier, before Alex was assigned this trial, and certainly a few days earlier, before a jury had been chosen and the trial had commenced. But what excuse is there for timing the story with surgical precision so as to do maximum damage to the judicial process? In doing so, the LA Times caused the effort of the court, the parties and the 150 citizens who answered the call of duty by reporting for jury service from near and far to go to waste, just to make a big splash. This strikes me as worse than irresponsible.

On the brighter side, once again, it is the bloggers such as you, who are willing to look behind the story to discover the real facts. One can only hope that through these efforts, the truth will eventually come out.

Marcy J.K. Tiffany, Esq.
 
Everyone interested in the criminal justice system in the U.S. should read this article by Alex Kozinski.

CRIMINAL LAW 2.0
So many great points, but I'll just point out this one.

AEDPA is a cruel, unjust and unnecessary law that effectively removes federal judges as safeguards against miscarriages of justice. It has resulted and continues to result in much human suffering. It should be repealed
 
I only read the first sentence, and that pretty much sums it up.
Got through the first ten or so pages and it's basically a head-nod all the way through. Will finish later when I have time but it looks like a great article.

 
Everyone interested in the criminal justice system in the U.S. should read this article by Alex Kozinski.

CRIMINAL LAW 2.0
I've seen this article floating around on some of the blogs recently. I had absolutely no idea that prosecutors were more or less shielded from criminal liability when they engage in misconduct. That's appalling.
Prosecutorial immunity is high up on my list of things that need to be repealed
Seems like a no-brainer.

Usually when I encounter a policy that I oppose, I can at least see what the justification for it is supposed to be. I seriously can't see any plausible argument in favor of shielding prosecutors from misconduct charges. Obviously they shouldn't fear criminal liability stemming from honest errors or misjudgment, but why not hold them to the same standards as police and defense attorneys?

 
Everyone interested in the criminal justice system in the U.S. should read this article by Alex Kozinski.

CRIMINAL LAW 2.0
I've seen this article floating around on some of the blogs recently. I had absolutely no idea that prosecutors were more or less shielded from criminal liability when they engage in misconduct. That's appalling.
Prosecutorial immunity is high up on my list of things that need to be repealed
Seems like a no-brainer.

Usually when I encounter a policy that I oppose, I can at least see what the justification for it is supposed to be. I seriously can't see any plausible argument in favor of shielding prosecutors from misconduct charges. Obviously they shouldn't fear criminal liability stemming from honest errors or misjudgment, but why not hold them to the same standards as police and defense attorneys?
The argument in Imbler is that prosecutors can't be discouraged from investigating the powerful by the risk that a collateral action against them will come down the line. You could probably imagine the scenario of a really powerful connected client threatening a 1983 suit against a prosecutor for investigating him.

Still, I don't see how that means that prosecutors need more liability than police officers. Qualified immunity would seem to strike the appropriate balance.

 
It's a great blueprint to change and improve the Justice System. Well written and reasoned.

There's so much there. Everyone knows eyewitnesses are bunk but yet it continues. Everybody knows the public shouldn't be electing judges, yet it continues. Withholding evidence. Overcharging. Informant problems. Fighting requested DNA tests that would eventually exonerate those wrongly convicted. Win at all costs vs. justice. What an embarrassment that these things go on and some of the checks and balances were removed.

Kudos to Kozinski; what a work of art. It's not easy being the one to lay it all out there. Although of course different from Snowden, it feels like it's in the same vein. Revealing. Get it done.

 
After getting through Serial and The Staircase, I'm fully on board with completely renovating the jury system. We need people who know logic, understand the law, and I say we should let them ask questions too. I see no reason not to have some kind of professional juries system.
I like the idea of professional jurors but I'm not sure about the reality.

 
NCCommish said:
Walking Boot said:
After getting through Serial and The Staircase, I'm fully on board with completely renovating the jury system. We need people who know logic, understand the law, and I say we should let them ask questions too. I see no reason not to have some kind of professional juries system.
I like the idea of professional jurors but I'm not sure about the reality.
I'm not sure I'd trust "professional jurors" any more than the juries we have now, if those professionals are coming from the same general pool of people. Perhaps a system wherein the "professional jurors" are actually sitting judges. For example, one judge is assigned to case as the actual judge (same as now) , while three other judges from the district/group/area/whatever serve as the jurors.

 

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