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….“People were warned about Kozinski, that he was sexually gross,” said one former law clerk who served for a judge who worked in close proximity to Kozinski. “But they traded in their life for a year so that they could get a Kennedy clerkship, and then you are set for life.” He was referring to Kozinski’s role as a “feeder” judge who vetted clerks for supreme court justice Anthony Kennedy. “Eventually, Kavanaugh had his own authority, also as a judge, to do something, and he didn’t.” Kavanaugh’s relationship with Kozinski began in the early 1990s. As a top student at...

Alex Kozinski, the powerful judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit who was facing a judicial investigation over allegations that he subjected 15 women to inappropriate sexual behavior, announced Monday that he would retire effective immediately. In a statement provided by his lawyer, Kozinski apologized, saying that he “had a broad sense of humor and a candid way of speaking to both male and female law clerks alike,” and that “in doing so, I may not have been mindful enough of the special challenges and pressures that women face in the workplace.” “It grieves me to...

The chief judge of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said Thursday that he has opened a misconduct inquiry into a judge accused of inappropriate sexual conduct and comments by six women. Ninth Circuit Chief Judge Sidney R. Thomas issued the order based on allegations against Judge Alex Kozinski in a Dec. 8 Washington Post article. The women were clerks and others at the largest federal appeals court in the country. Kozinski is a prominent judge, serving as chief judge of the 9th Circuit from 2007 to 2014. He is known for his irreverent opinions and his clerks often...

Six women who served as clerks or externs at the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals allege to The Washington Post that Judge Alex Kozinski subjected them to inappropriate sexual comments or conduct, including asking them to watch pornography in his chambers, the newspaper reported Friday. Heidi Bond, who clerked for the Pasadena, California-based judge from 2006 to 2007, told the newspaper she recalled three instances in which he asked her to look at images of naked people. She said one set of images was of college-age students where some were 'inexplicably naked while everyone else was clothed.' Another set...

Six women have accused a federal appeals court judge of sexual misconduct, according to The Washington Post. Alex Kozinski serves on the Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit and was formerly that court's chief judge. Heidi Bond, who clerked for Kozinski in 2006 and 2007, said he called her into his office and showed her pornography on his computer. He asked her if she thought the images were "photoshopped." He asked her if they turned her on. Bond, who now authors romance novels under the name Courtney Milan, wrote on her website that such incidents happened at least three...

SAN FRANCISCO – Yasir Afifi, a 20-year-old computer salesman and community college student, took his car in for an oil change earlier this month and his mechanic spotted an odd wire hanging from the undercarriage. The wire was attached to a strange magnetic device that puzzled Afifi and the mechanic. They freed it from the car and posted images of it online, asking for help in identifying it. Two days later, FBI agents arrived at Afifi's Santa Clara apartment and demanded the return of their property — a global positioning system tracking device now at the center of a raging...

Government agents can sneak onto your property in the middle of the night, put a GPS device on the bottom of your car and keep track of everywhere you go. This doesn't violate your Fourth Amendment rights, because you do not have any reasonable expectation of privacy in your own driveway - and no reasonable expectation that the government isn't tracking your movements. That is the bizarre - and scary - rule that now applies in California and eight other Western states. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which covers this vast jurisdiction, recently decided the government...

A judicial council on Thursday admonished the chief judge of the nation's largest federal appeals court for having "sexually explicit photos and videos" on his personal Web site, but decided against any further punishment.

A panel of federal judges admonished Alex Kozinski, chief judge of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, on Thursday for being "judicially imprudent" and "exhibiting poor judgment" by placing sexually explicit photos and videos on an Internet server that could be accessed by the public. Kozinski's conduct had "created a public controversy that can reasonably be seen as having resulted in embarrassment to the institution of the federal judiciary," according to the panel's opinion, written by Anthony J. Scirica, chief judge of the U.S. 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals. The judges ruled, however, that Kozinski's actions did not constitute...

WASHINGTON (Legal Newsline)-U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts has named a panel to conduct the judicial misconduct investigation of 9th U.S. Circuit Chief Judge Alex Kozinski. Kozinski himself had called for the investigation after the Los Angeles Times reported that there were sexually explicit images on Kozinski's personal computer, which his wife, attorney Marcy J.K. Tiffany, told Legal Newsline belonged to their family.

A federal appeals court judge today recused himself from a closely-watched obscenity trial in Los Angeles, three days after acknowledging that he had posted sexually explicit material on a publicly accessible personal website. "In light of the public controversy surrounding my involvement in this case, I have concluded that there is a manifest necessity to declare a mistrial," said Alex Kozinski, chief judge for the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. "I will recuse myself from further participation in the case and will ask the chief judge of the district court to reassign it to another judge." The obscenity trial in...

An apology from the 9th Circuit judge for his computer collection of porn isn't necessary. He just needs to say, 'So what?' ...Judge Alex Kozinski's statements about the stash of sexually explicit images he collected and that the public (until this week) could view on his website have been varied, although not necessarily inconsistent: He thought the site was for private storage and offered no public access (although he shared some of the material on the site with friends). People have been sending him this stuff for years (implying that it just accumulates, like junk mail). He might accidentally have...

LOS ANGELES - The criminal prosecution of a hard-core pornographer turned into a personal trial for the presiding judge, who called for an investigation Thursday into his own conduct over lewd photos and videos stored on his family's publicly accessible Web site. Alex Kozinski, chief judge of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, asked an ethics panel of the court to initiate proceedings after the disclosure about his trove of sexually explicit material. "I will cooperate fully in any investigation," Kozinski said in a statement. snip The Los Angeles Times reported Wednesday that Kozinski had posted sexual material on...

In a saga with all the elements of a Hollywood thriller, an appeals court judge who is one of America's leading legal intellectuals stands accused of maintaining a public stash of online fetish pornography just as he has begun overseeing a criminal trial involving the distribution of sexually explicit scatological videos. Judge Alex Kozinski of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and Chief Judge Mary Schroeder during oral arguments in San Francisco in 2003. Kozinski is accused of maintaining a public stash of online fetish pornography. Opening arguments were getting under way in the obscenity case in federal court...

(AP) Judge Alex Kozinski, of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, gestures as Chief Judge Mary... SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - Alex Kozinski is more accustomed to appearing on lists to fill U.S. Supreme Court vacancies than headlines involving pornographic scandals. But on Wednesday, the chief judge of the country's largest federal appeals court was forced to suspend an obscenity trial he was presiding over after sexually explicit images posted to his personal Web site became public. The Los Angeles Times reported on its Web site that Kozinski had posted sexual material on his personal Web site and then blocked...

A federal judge suspended the obscenity trial of a Los Angeles porn distributor Wednesday following a newspaper report that the judge had sexually explicit material on his own Web site. Judge Alex Kozinski on Wednesday granted a joint motion to suspend the trial after the prosecution said it needed time to look into the issue of the judge's Web site. The judge told the jury to return on Monday. The panel spent hours at the Pasadena offices of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals watching videos depicting bestiality and extreme fetishes. Kozinski is chief justice of the 9th Circuit...

"PASADENA, Calif. (AP) - A federal judge has suspended the obscenity trial of a Los Angeles porn distributor following a newspaper report that the judge had sexually explicit material on his own Web site. ... Kozinski is chief justice of the 9th Circuit but is serving as a trial judge in the obscenity case."

Alex Kozinski, who is presiding over an obscenity trial in L.A., admits he posted sexually explicit photos and videos. He says he didn't think the public could see the site, which is now blocked. One of the highest-ranking federal judges in the United States, who is currently presiding over an obscenity trial in Los Angeles, 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...

One of the highest-ranking federal judges in the United States, who is currently presiding over an obscenity trial in Los Angeles, has maintained a 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...

Court gives legal victory to abortion foes 12 minutes ago A U.S. appeals court handed a legal victory on Friday to medical groups working on behalf of health-care providers who refuse to offer abortion services. The decision by a three-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals allows private groups of health care providers to partner with the U.S. federal government to defend the federal Weldon Amendment from a lawsuit brought against it by California Attorney General Bill Lockyer. The Weldon Amendment, which Lockyer says is unconstitutional, prevents federal, state and local governments from receiving federal funds if...