Home -> Law Blog Directory -> Legal News Blogs -> Lawbeat

Legal News

: Lawbeat

Kozinski cover-up: I plead guilty

By Mark Obbie

Scott Glover's latest revelations about 9th Circuit Judge Alex Kozinski's sense of humor brought back some memories -- and a little discomfort. Did I betray my journalistic mission? I don't think so, but I'll tell the story and let my reader(s) judge.Glover, who broke the story last June about Kozinski's image archive on the Web, followed up today with revelations about the judge's longstanding e-mail joke list. Those jokes, Glover wrote, went to  "a group of friends and associates, including his law clerks, colleagues on the federal bench, prominent attorneys and journalists" (emphasis here on the last word). In his best imitation of a Victorian prude, Glover characterizes the most risque e-mails:Oh my! So who were those journalists? Michael Kinsley and Stuart Taylor are named, and quoted in Glover's story. I wasn't cool enough to be on the list, but I was a pass-along reader -- a journalist friend on the list frequently forwarded Kozinski's messages to me. And I didn't think at the time that this was remotely scandalous behavior by a public official. All I remember are two reactions: fleeting curiosity about a federal judge who was casual enough to engage in such banter, and a fervent wish that the messages would stop cluttering my in-box. Remember, this was the mid-1990s. E-mail was a fairly new thing. What now seems retrograde behavior struck me then as ... well, normal guy stuff. Even today, some of my normal guy friends (that is, not in the professional world) still send these. I find it remarkable that Kozinski sent them to his own list until six months ago. But a dozen or so years ago? I never imagined that this was compromising behavior by a judge. We're not talking about extreme material. At their edgiest, they were jokes about sex, from a guy's point of view. Glover's already run into credible accusations that he hyped the nature of Kozinski's material. My memory is fuzzy, so perhaps I am glossing over some truly questionable behavior, but I can't help but think that this reeks of hypocrisy. Considering how widespread Internet porn is, the notion that a federal judge is somehow in jeopardy for trading in lame jokes about sex is hard to stomach. As a journalist, it never once occurred to me in the 1990s that Alex Kozinski's behavior was newsworthy. I haven't read anything yet to change my mind. Nor do I wonder why I and other journalists simply hit the delete key without a second thought.

Full post as published by Lawbeat on December 08, 2008 (boomark / email).