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Thursday, June 12, 2008

Um.

posted by on June 12 at 11:19 AM

Remember Alex Kozinski, the Reagan-appointed, conservative Ninth Circuit judge who acknowledged maintaining a publicly accessible web site featuring “sexually explicit images”?

Now the details about that “sexually explicit” material are coming out, and, well, just wow:

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.”
That “funny” material also included:
* images of masturbation, public sex and contortionist sex; * a slide show striptease featuring a transsexual; * a folder that contained a series of photos of women’s crotches as seen through snug fitting clothing or underwear; * themes of defecation and urination.

Kozinski, of course, “said he must have accidentally uploaded those images to his server while intending to upload something else.” Whoops!

And it gets better: According to someone who says he was the source of the information, the Wall Street Journal and other papers knew about the story but decided not to publish it.

Kaimi Wenger, blogging at Concurring Opinions, points out that while watching porn at work might be no big deal under certain circumstances (hell, it’s mandatory here at the Stranger), Kozinski was actually hosting a web site with these images. More important, he was a judge charged with ruling on things like obscenity, rape, and sexual harassment. Someone in that position, Wenger writes, needs to be “beyond reproach.” At this point, he writes,

I have to suspect that former litigants in cases that were before Judge Kozinski are asking themselves, “was my case impacted by the judge’s porn habits?”

Wouldn’t you be? Let’s say you had a sex harassment case, obscenity case, privacy case, rape case — hell, all sorts of potentially related topics — before the judge. Wouldn’t you be wondering how the judge’s personal habits affected the outcome — and whether you could re-open that can of worms?

Or for that matter, if your female client lost her case: Is it because the judge hates women? Is it because he’s a misogynist who thinks women are like cows?

I’m not saying that those ideas are accurate. In fact, I strongly suspect that they’re not. Multiple people who I respect quite a bit have very high opinions of the judge, and I don’t believe that would be true if he were neglecting his duty in any significant way.

But those questions or concerns don’t have to be accurate to be damaging, do they? Even the perception that the judge might think women are cows — that potentially undermines the integrity of the whole system, doesn’t it?

Which brings us to the broader point. Judge Kozinski’s actions affect the reputation of the judiciary, on which rest foundations of the state, like public respect for the rule of law. To the extent that this public disclosure undermines public confidence in the judiciary or the rule of law, it’s a very bad thing. There’s a reason for the outrage that’s expressed when the public hears about judges’ bad behavior. As Stephen Gillers told the LAT, “The phrase ‘sober as a judge’ resonates with the American public.”

Which is why Judge Kozinski’s decidedly unsober actions are so troubling.

RSS icon Comments

1

Yeah!... Kinky people have no place in public service. They should all be locked up in mental institutions! Because everyone knows that a person's kink defines their entire reality! (Right Dan?)

Posted by You_Gotta_Be_Kidding_Me | June 12, 2008 11:33 AM
2

some people only like persecution of public figures for sexual preferences when it suits them. or the contradiction of porn being both benign and malignant depending on who we're going after.

Posted by Bellevue Ave | June 12, 2008 11:34 AM
3

What YGBKM @1 said.

Posted by lostboy | June 12, 2008 11:36 AM
4

I'm not sure I understand why this is such a big deal. from the first link provided, it seems like it was a personal website. While I understand the idea behind a judge keeping a certain sense of decorum, it just sounds like this guy didn't know how to use the internet; this is a problem that seems to afflict much of our government, actually.

Posted by dbell | June 12, 2008 11:37 AM
5

"But those questions or concerns don't have to be accurate to be damaging, do they? Even the perception that the judge might think women are cows — that potentially undermines the integrity of the whole system, doesn't it?"

No and no.

Posted by w7ngman | June 12, 2008 11:37 AM
6

Also, this make no sense:

...while watching porn at work might be no big deal under certain circumstances ..., Kozinski was actually hosting a web site with these images.

How is hosting a personal website worse than looking at porn at work?

Posted by w7ngman | June 12, 2008 11:41 AM
7

He wasn't forced to resign.

Posted by My Hot Rod | June 12, 2008 11:41 AM
8

Dumb post.

Posted by keshmeshi | June 12, 2008 11:44 AM
9

Erica, I like your accuracy in general, but as far as I can tell, Kozinski has not resigned, nor can he be forced to resign. He would have to be removed from the bench in an involved procedure or choose to resign.

Posted by Glenn Fleishman | June 12, 2008 11:48 AM
10

"forced to resign"

Not even close. He hasn't even recused himself from the case yet, though he probably will. He's in no danger of losing his job. At least get your facts straight. No wonder you guys get so much grief for being shitty reporters.

Posted by F | June 12, 2008 11:50 AM
11

@7 is right, he hasn't resigned. He temporarily suspended the obscenity case against a pornographer over which he is presiding. I think he needed some time to deal with the truckload of irony.

Posted by switzerblog | June 12, 2008 11:51 AM
12

Perhaps Dan Savage can provide you with an estimate of the number of male judges who are porn customers. I'll just take a wild guess that it's above 0%.

My guess is that no judge's or public or private figure's personal life choices pass my smell test based on any number of criteria. Should the judge recuse himself in this case? Should married/divorced/unmarried judges recuse themselves from all family court matters?

Posted by umvue | June 12, 2008 12:10 PM
13

Also, he's not conservative; he's known for being a champion of free speech. And, judging by his rulings ("the parties are advised to chill") he's kind of a hippie.

Posted by mattymatt | June 12, 2008 12:16 PM
14

Erica, I hate to go all Savage Love on you, but aren't judges allowed their kinks too?

Posted by arduous | June 12, 2008 12:20 PM
15

Fact check yourself next time.

The judge recused himself from a case involving internet pornography.

That's not quite the same as resigning.

Posted by NapoleonXIV | June 12, 2008 12:23 PM
16

OMG!!! The Judge likes porn?!!!

Whatever. I'm sure there are plenty of people in positions of public authority that also like pornography, even weird fetish pornography.

Now judging an obscenity case? That's irony. But asserting that he couldn't properly preside over a rape or harrassment case just because he has a website with pictures of naked ladies? That's fucking dumb.

Posted by Hernandez | June 12, 2008 12:30 PM
17

I wonder how many fundies look at porn? Or priests and pastors? Let's have a look at the web traffic of the Vatican!!!!

Posted by Vince | June 12, 2008 12:52 PM
18

Instead of rehashing other blogs, why don't you give us your own opinion on this, maybe some real reporting and not just bookmarking?

Hey, the judge likes some kinky porn! *yawn* Unless he's ruling against online porn all the time, this is nothing.

Posted by NaFun | June 12, 2008 12:55 PM
19

his website sounds more like a rotten.com knock-off than a porn site. either way, i don't understand what the big deal is. is it because he's a "reagan-appointed conservative?"

Posted by brandon | June 12, 2008 12:56 PM
20

I think this bears repeating, because it's an important concept to understand.

All men look at porn. All men look at porn. All men look at porn. All men look at porn. All men look at porn. All men look at porn. All men look at porn. All men look at porn. All men look at porn. All men look at porn.

Posted by Greg | June 12, 2008 1:01 PM
21

Ahh, I get it now. Needed more backstory, which I didn't get until I followed the links back to the LATimes piece.

He's presiding over the obscenity trial of the dude who makes movies with scat and bestiality and calls them art. It was good of the judge to recuse himself I think.

Posted by NaFun | June 12, 2008 1:04 PM
22

ECB, come up with your own content.

Posted by Bellevue Ave | June 12, 2008 1:06 PM
23

@20: Why you think the net was born?

Posted by NapoleonXIV | June 12, 2008 1:07 PM
24

Regarding the tranny striptease:

I would find the link now, but I'm at work. In short I'm sure it's a series of pictures that look like a woman doing a striptease but in the end it's a tranny. I remember it was passed around like crazy over AIM during my freshman year in college. There is humor in that.

Same thing with the cow. I just don't get how it's hard to understand how these are joke images and not for pleasure. If you want examples of fucked up sexual and or violent images not for the purpose of arousal please check out 4chan.org. That is all.

Posted by Sir Learnsalot | June 12, 2008 2:06 PM
25

Before you get all worked up by the media hype on this, you might want to read this quick piece by Lawrence Lessig - it gives a few specifics about what happened which seem to have been left out of many of the news and blog articles.


Also, why do people judge whether something is funny or artistic or whatever without actually seeing it for themselves. For all you know the stuff is funny and under other circumstances you would defend it and tell anyone attacking it that they had a stick up their butt.

Posted by Queegmire | June 12, 2008 7:54 PM
26

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_know_it_when_I_see_it

And hoo boy, does he like to see it!

@25, people can judge whether something is funny or artistic without even seeing it, using the magic of ideology!

There's NOTHING funny about pictures of women's genitals in tight clothing (actually, I don't find that funny myself, but I find it interesting for other reasons.)

Erica's boyfriend only loves her for her mind and can't stand the sight of her genitals, I'm sure. Or at least, that's what he has to tell her.

Me, I keep all of my pornography in plastic grocery sacks.

And what the hey, this one's been building up all week:

Q: How many feminists does it take to screw in a lightbulb?

A: THAT'S NOT FUNNY!!!

Posted by CP | June 12, 2008 11:07 PM
27

Kozinski appears to have a ribald sense of humor -- he might even read Playboy magazine in the privacy of his own home. None of what he apparently had was shocking.

www.cameltoe.org -- as featured on Howard Stern! And VH-1!

The Holstein-painted nudes were artistic, not pornographic. Unless viewing Michelangelo's David causes your hand to reach down your jeans, not every nude is pornographic.

Posted by Sacco and Vendetta | June 13, 2008 8:42 AM
28

Larry Lessig says:

Here are the facts as I've been able to tell: For at least a month, a disgruntled litigant, angry at Judge Kozinski (and the Ninth Circuit) has been talking to the media to try to smear Kozinski. Kozinski had sent a link to a file (unrelated to the stuff being reported about) that was stored on a file server maintained by Kozinski's son, Yale. From that link (and a mistake in how the server was configured), it was possible to determine the directory structure for the server. From that directory structure, it was possible to see likely interesting places to peer. The disgruntled sort did that, and shopped some of what he found to the news sources that are now spreading it...

His son set up a server to make it easy for friends and family to share stuff -- family pictures, documents he wanted to share, videos, etc. Nothing alleged to have been on this server violates any law. (There's some ridiculous claim about "bestiality." But the video is not bestiality. It lives today on YouTube -- a funny (to some) short of a man defecating in a field, and then being chased by a donkey. If there was malicious intent in this video, it was the donkey's. And in any case, nothing sexual is shown in that video at all.) No one can know who uploaded what, or for whom. The site was not "on the web" in the sense of a site open and inviting anyone to come in. It had a robots.txt file to indicate its contents were not to be indexed. That someone got in is testimony to the fact that security -- everywhere -- is imperfect. But this was a private file server, like a private room, hacked by a litigant with a vendetta. Decent people -- and publications -- should say shame on the person violating the privacy here, and not feed the violation by forcing a judge to defend his humor to a nosy world.

When it comes to government invasions of our privacy, we are (and rightly) a privacy obsessed people. We need to extend some of that obsession to the increasingly common violations by private people against other private people. There is nothing for Chief Judge Kozinski to defend because he has violated no law, and we live in a free society (or so he thought when he immigrated from Romania). A free society should feed the right to be left alone, including the right not to have to defend publicly private choices and taste, by learning not to feed the privacy trolls.

via BoingBoing

Posted by Phil M | June 13, 2008 1:23 PM

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