9th Circus Chief Judge Knows Obsenity When He Sees It...

...Because he keeps it on a public website:

An obscenity trial in Los Angeles federal court was suspended today after The Times reported that the judge presiding over the case has maintained his own publicly accessible website featuring sexually explicit photos and videos.

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."

Kozinski, 57, said that he thought the site was for his private storage and that he was not aware the images could be seen by the public, although he also said he had shared some material on the site with friends. After the interview Tuesday evening, he blocked public access to the site.

After details about the website were published on latimes.com this morning, the judge offered to entertain motions to recuse himself from the obscenity trial of Hollywood filmmaker Ira Isaacs, who is accused of distributing criminally obscene sexual fetish videos depicting bestiality and defecation.

Prosecutors said they were conferring with supervisors within the Department of Justice about how to proceed. In the meantime, they wanted jurors to be admonished to disregard publicity in the case. Defense attorney Roger Diamond made no objection to Kozinski continuing to hear the case, which began with opening statements this morning.

Of course the defense attorney wants to keep him on the case - he'll be sympathetic to the porno producer. And, the judge has a lifetime appointment so unless they can come up with a way to impeach him, we're stuck with him.

The 9th Circus (Circuit) is the most overruled circuit in the federal court system. Given the type of people appointed, it's no wonder. Amazingly, he was a Reagan appointee. He must have "grown" in office like so many federal judges.