Legal Commentary

9th Circuit Judge Gets Public Admonishment for Explicit Postings on Internet

By Jeralyn

The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals today ended its disciplinary investigation into Judge Alex Kozinski for posting explicit matter on the Internet and allowing it to remain there after he knew it was publicly accessible with a public admonition.

“We find that the judge’s possession of sexually explicit offensive material combined with his carelessness in failing to safeguard his sphere of privacy was judicially imprudent,” said the report by Anthony J. Scirica.

[More...]

The panel, headed by Scirica, found that Kozinski allowed such material to remain on the Internet, even after discovering that it could be accessed by the public.

The panel admonished Kozinski for “exhibiting poor judgment ... [that] created a public controversy that can reasonably be seen as having resulted in embarrassment to the federal judiciary.”

Kozinski was presiding over an obscenity trial when his postings were publicly reported. He declared a mistrial.

As TChris said at the time, this was much ado about nothing.

As I wrote at the time,

Combine a disgruntled litigant with a reporter focused on sensationalism and the public got a false story the rest of the media was only too happy to run with. I'm not surprised.

Count me as one firmly in Judge Kozinski's corner.

Full post as published by TalkLeft on July 02, 2009 (boomark / email).