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Porn Found On L.A. Obscenity Case Judge's Website
Stanislav_J writes "In a bizarre revelation, the judge who is presiding over the Isaacs obscenity trial in Los Angeles was found to have sexually explicit material on a publicly-accessible website. Alex Kozinski, chief judge of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, acknowledged that he had posted the materials, but says he believed the site to be for personal storage only, and not accessible to the public (though he does acknowledge sharing some of the material with friends). The files included images of masturbation, public sex, contortionist sex, a transsexual striptease, 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. The latter two are especially ironic in that the trial involves the distribution of allegedly obscene sexual fetish videos depicting bestiality, among other things, by Ira Isaacs, an L.A. filmmaker."
Stanislav_J continues:
"The judge has blocked public access to the site (putting up a graphic that reads, 'Ain't nothin' here — y'all best be movin' on, compadre').
Isaacs' defense had welcomed the assignment of Kozinski to the case because of his long record of defending the First Amendment, but the startling news about his website (the revelation of which seems to have been interestingly timed to coincide with today's scheduled opening arguments) now have many folks calling for him to be removed from the case. There is no indication that any of the images on Kozinski's site would be considered obscene or illegal. But certainly, one has to believe that most would consider this at the very least to represent a serious conflict of interest given the nature of the trial."
Isaacs' defense had welcomed the assignment of Kozinski to the case because of his long record of defending the First Amendment, but the startling news about his website (the revelation of which seems to have been interestingly timed to coincide with today's scheduled opening arguments) now have many folks calling for him to be removed from the case. There is no indication that any of the images on Kozinski's site would be considered obscene or illegal. But certainly, one has to believe that most would consider this at the very least to represent a serious conflict of interest given the nature of the trial."
The bad news: the site is down. "Safari can't open the page 'http://alex.kozinski.com/' because it could not connect to the server 'alex.kozinski.com'"
The good news: it's in the Wayback machine.
The bad news: the Wayback machine just shows "Ain't nothin' here. Y'all best be movin' on, compadre" on the main page, from 2004 through the last snapshot in 2005. (The news story saying that this is a recent change is apparently wrong).
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
For every case the Supreme Court hears, how many do they allow to stand?-- http://mediamatters.org/items/200511090012
If 16 of 19 cases that were taken were overturned in 04/05, how many cases did the Supreme Court decline to hear, allowing the 9th Circuit decision to stand? I can't find statistics on the numbers of appeals where the Supreme Court essentially "agreed" with the Circuit court, but I did find this neat doohickey that lets me generate reports on case information for each Circuit, and it tells me that for 2005, the number of "on the merits" decisions (as opposed to decisions about procedural error, etc) was:
1st) 986
2nd) 2121
3rd) 2329
4th) 2590
5th) 3608
6th) 2903
7th) 1480
8th) 2078
9th) 6197
10th) 1524
11th) 3579
DCth
If every one of those 6197 decisions was appealed and the Supreme Court only disagreed 16 times, that's a pretty damn good percentage in my opinion.
Finally, California has money out the wazoo. That money is required in order to appeal cases in the first place, and doubly so to appeal to the Supreme Court. Coupled with the fact that the government is more or less required to let the people try to appeal (something about a right to petition for redress of grievances), you can see those dollars at work in this Circuit.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
Cryptome posted a Yahoo cache of Kozinski's directory on its site.
Some of the more interesting file names include:
a.day.without.jews.wmv
BBCCopsUndies.wmv
Colo-rectalSurgeon.wav
isitmanisitwoman.pps
jewsdontcamp.mp3
piss_diver.wmv
Sheep_guy.jpg
show.them.to.me.wmv
testicle.interview.wmv
Looks like Jewish groups may not appreciate his sense of humor as well as the anti-porn crowd. At any rate, I don't see much of anything there that looks from the file names alone to be hardcore. It really does look like a directory of miscellaneous stuff that came in "Look at this!" and "Check THIS out!" e-mails from friends that he just stored on the site for easy access.
"Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket." -- Eric Hoffer
I wasn't running against the original, of course. What kind of idiot do you take me for?