Home -> Law Blog Directory -> Intellectual Property Law Blogs -> Threat Level

Intellectual Property Law

: Threat Level

Judge in Obscenity Case Calls for Investigation of Himself

By Ryan Singel, Kevin Poulsen, Sarah Lai Stirland, Kim Zetter, and David Kravets

Alex Kozinski, the 9th Circuit chief judge who was caught displaying pornographic images on his personal web site while presiding over an obscenity suit in Los Angeles, has called for an investigation of himself.

Kozinski is required under new rules recently adopted by the Judicial Council to order the investigation. Rules Governing Judicial Conduct and Disability require the chief judge to order an investigation when questions of misconduct arise against a judge.

Misconduct is defined in part as: "conduct occurring outside the performance of official duties if the conduct might have a prejudicial effect on the administration of the business of the courts, including a substantial and widespread lowering of public confidence in the courts among reasonable people."

The rules also provide some guidance for when a chief judge might deem it necessary to launch an investigation. I've added the emphasis in the excerpt below:

An allegation of misconduct or disability filed under Rule 6 is a "complaint," and the Rule so provides in subsection (c)(1). However, both the nature of the process and the use of the term "identify" suggest that the word "complaint" covers more than a document formally triggering the process. The process relies on chief judges considering known information and triggering the process when appropriate. "Identifying" a "complaint," therefore, is best understood as the chief judge's concluding that information known to the judge constitutes probable cause to believe that misconduct occurred or a disability exists, whether or not the information is framed as, or intended to be an accusation.

Cyrus Sanai, the source of the information behind the Los Angeles Times article that first exposed the information about Kozinski's web site, says the judge is trying to head off misconduct complaints before they're filed.

"It's what he's required to do so it doesn?t surprise me," says Sanai, a Beverly Hills lawyer who discovered the material on Kozinski's web site last December. "It's an eventuality and frankly he had to do it. It would have been added as a misconduct against him."

Kozinski is overseeing a trial in Los Angeles involving a filmmaker who is accused of distributing pornographic images that depict bestiality and other images deemed to be possibly criminally obscene. Sanai says Kozinski was required to disclose to lawyers in the case that he himself has been distributing pornographic images.

"It became a judicial ethical issue with his failure to tell them that he sometimes distributes some of this stuff himself," Sanai told Threat Level. "You have a duty of disclosure as a judge if there's something about you or your background that might cause a reasonable person to question your impartiality."

Kozinski did not return calls for comment, though a spokeswoman from his office provided a statement from him saying that he would cooperate fully with the investigation he has ordered against himself.

Photo: Paul Sakuma/AP

See also:

• Chief Judge in Oscenity Case Caught Posting Porn

Full post as published by Threat Level on June 12, 2008 (boomark / email).