ASSOCIATED PRESS: 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 his family’s Web site became public.
The Los Angeles Times reported that Kozinski had posted sexual material on his personal Web site and then
blocked access after being interviewed about it Tuesday evening. Kozinski, 57, told the Times he thought the material on his site, which included a video of a man cavorting with a sexually aroused farm animal, couldn’t be seen by the public. The judge said he didn’t believe any of the images were obscene. “Is it prurient? I don’t know what to tell you,” he told the newspaper. “I think it’s odd and interesting. It’s part of life.”
He suspended until Monday the trial of Ira Isaacs, who is charged with obscenity for selling movies depicting bestiality and extreme fetishes involving feces and urination. Appellate judges such as Kozinski occasionally handle trial court cases. Kozinski told lawyers in the case he wanted to give them time to consider whether to ask that he be disqualified. Federal prosecutors were discussing their options, Department of Justice lawyer Kenneth Whitted said. MORE