WIKI——Judge Kozinski was born to a Jewish family[2] in Bucharest, Romania, in July 1950. In 1962, when he was 12, his parents, both Holocaust survivors, brought him to the United States. The family settled in the Los Feliz neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, where his father, Moses, ran a small grocery store. Kozinski, who had grown up as a committed communist in Bucharest, became what he described as “an instant capitalist” when he took his first trip outside of the Iron Curtain, to Vienna, where he partook of such luxuries as chewing gum and bananas.
Education and career
He received a Bachelor of Arts degree from University of California, Los Angeles in 1972. He received a Juris Doctor from UCLA School of Law in 1975. He was a law clerk for Judge Anthony Kennedy of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit from 1975 to 1976. He was a Law clerk for Chief Justice Warren Burger of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1976 to 1977. He was in private practice of law in Los Angeles, California from 1977 to 1979. He was in private practice of law in Washington, D.C. from 1979 to 1981. He was a deputy legal counsel of the Office of the President-Elect in Washington, D.C. from 1980 to 1981. He was an assistant counsel for the Office of Counsel to the President in Washington, D.C. in 1981. He was a special counsel for the Merit Systems Protection Board in Washington, D.C. from 1981 to 1982.[4]
Kozinski appeared on TV’s The Dating Game, where he gave a surprise kiss to the woman who selected him.
Office of Special Counsel incident[edit]
While in the Office of Special Counsel, despite staff recommendations against termination, Kozinski overruled his staff and then repeatedly tutored Interior Secretary James G. Watt’s legal staff in how to rewrite the proposed termination of a mining safety whistle blower, James Spadaro, so as to pass legal muster. When the incident came to light years later during confirmation hearings for Kozinski’s Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals nomination, the scandal drew 43 Senate opposition votes and reportedly subsequently prevented Kozinski’s planned upgrade to the Supreme Court.[6]