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

By Jeralyn, Section Judiciary
Posted on Thu Jul 02, 2009 at 12:53:10 PM EST
Tags: Alex Kozinski (all tags)
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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.

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    9th Circuit Judge Gets Public Admonishment for Explicit Postings on Internet | 2 comments (2 topical)

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    Still don't like the wording in the article (none / 0) (#1)
    by me only on Thu Jul 02, 2009 at 01:08:06 PM EST
    Did Judge Kozinski really

    posting explicit matter on the Internet and allowing it to remain

    meaning he intentionally posted the information, or was it that someone dug it up on his home network?

    In between. (5.00 / 1) (#2)
    by Peter G on Thu Jul 02, 2009 at 02:27:36 PM EST
    It was a private website, not a "home network" that someone hacked.  But the security was ineffective, and the disgruntled lawyer-litigant who went after the judge was able to find a weakness and get into it.  So, yes it was on the internet, but it wasn't something that would turn up in a Google search, for example.

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    9th Circuit Judge Gets Public Admonishment for Explicit Postings on Internet | 2 comments (2 topical)

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