| Alex Kozinski | |
|---|---|
| Chief Judge of the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit | |
| Incumbent | |
| Assumed office December 1, 2007 |
|
| Preceded by | Mary Schroeder |
| Judge of the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit | |
| Incumbent | |
| Assumed office November 7, 1985 |
|
| Nominated by | Ronald Reagan |
| Preceded by | Seat established |
| Personal details | |
| Born | July 23, 1950 Bucharest, Romania |
| Alma mater | University of California, Los Angeles |
Alex Kozinski (born July 23, 1950) is Chief Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, an essayist, and a judicial commentator.[1]
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Kozinski was born in Bucharest, Romania. 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 graduated from the University of California, Los Angeles, receiving an A.B. degree in 1972, and from the UCLA School of Law, receiving a J.D. degree in 1975. Kozinski clerked for future Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy on the Ninth Circuit from 1975 to 1976, and then for Chief Justice Warren Burger from 1976 to 1977. From June 5, 1981 to August 1982, Kozinski served as the first U.S. Special Counsel appointed by President Ronald Reagan.
In 1982, Kozinski was appointed chief judge at the newly formed United States Court of Federal Claims. In 1985, at the age of 35, Kozinski was appointed to a new seat at the U. S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit by President Reagan, making him the youngest federal appeals court judge. Defending the court against criticism because of a controversial decision, Kozinski went on record emphasizing judicial independence: "It seems to me that this is what makes this country truly great—that we can have a judiciary where the person who appoints you doesn't own you."[2] He also took a stand against the charge that the Ninth Circuit is overly liberal, which led some to call it "The Notorious Ninth": "I can say with some confidence that cries that the Ninth Circuit is so liberal are just simply misplaced."[3] On November 30, 2007, Kozinski was appointed the tenth chief judge of the Ninth Circuit.[4]
In 2008, according to The Los Angeles Times, Kozinski "maintained a publicly accessible website featuring sexually explicit photos and videos."[5] In response, Kozinski called for an ethics investigation of himself.[6] In July 2009, Kozinski was admonished by a panel headed by Judge Anthony Scirica.[7][8]
Thomas Martin Thompson had been convicted based largely on the testimony of his fellow inmates, and doubts about the effectiveness of his defense counsel led seven former California prosecutors to file briefs on Thompson's behalf. The Ninth Circuit originally denied Thompson's habeas petition attacking the state court decision. Two days before Thompson's scheduled execution, the Ninth Circuit en banc reversed (7-4) the earlier denial. Kozinski dissented:
If the en banc call is missed for whatever reason, the error can be corrected in a future case where the problem again manifests itself. ... That this is a capital case does not change the calculus. The stakes are higher in a death case, to be sure, but the stakes for a particular litigant play no legitimate role in the en banc process.
Kozinski's opinion was criticized by Judge Steven Reinhardt, who called it "bizarre and horrifying" and "unworthy of any jurist."[9] The en banc decision was reversed by the Supreme Court, which called the Ninth Circuit's action "a grave abuse of discretion."[10]
Kozinski dissented from an order rejecting the suggestion for rehearing en banc an appeal filed by Vanna White against Samsung for depicting a robot on a Wheel of Fortune set, in a humorous advertisement. While the Ninth Circuit held in favor of White, Kozinski dissented, stating that "All creators draw in part on the work of those who came before, referring to it, building on it, poking fun at it; we call this creativity, not piracy."[11]
An extended extract from the opinion is widely quoted: "Overprotecting intellectual property is as harmful as underprotecting it. Creativity is impossible without a rich public domain. Nothing today, likely nothing since we tamed fire, is genuinely new: Culture, like science and technology, grows by accretion, each new creator building on the works of those who came before. Overprotection stifles the very creative forces it's supposed to nurture".[12]
Kozinski's dissent in White is also famous for his sarcastic remark that "for better or worse, we are the Court of Appeals for the Hollywood Circuit."
Yet another of Kozinski's high-profile cases to date was the lawsuit filed by Mattel against MCA Records, the record label of Danish pop-dance group Aqua, for "turning Barbie into a sex object" in their song "Barbie Girl." Kozinski opened the case with "If this were a sci-fi melodrama, it might be called Speech-Zilla meets Trademark Kong" and famously concluded his opinion with the words: "The parties are advised to chill."[13]
The majority found the due process rights of a man accused of smuggling illegal immigrants across the border were not violated because witnesses who could have exonerated him were deported before they could be deposed. Despite winning, federal prosecutors, apparently pushed by Kozinski's dissent, dropped all charges and released the defendant.[14][15]
Kozinski was assigned an obscenity case in which Ira Isaacs is accused of distributing videos depicting bestiality and other images, similar to the 1973 Miller v. California case.[16][17] During the trial, on June 11, 2008, the Los Angeles Times reported that Kozinski had "maintained a publicly accessible Web site featuring sexually explicit photos and videos" at alex.kozinski.com. The Times reported that Kozinski's site included a photo of naked women on all fours painted to look like cows, a video of a half-dressed man cavorting with a sexually aroused farm animal, images of masturbation and public and contortionist sex, a slide show striptease featuring a transsexual, a series of photos of women's crotches as seen through snug fitting clothing or underwear, and content with themes of defecation and urination. Kozinski agreed that some of the material was inappropriate, but defended other content as "funny."[18]
Calling the coverage a "baseless smear" by a disgruntled litigant, Stanford University law professor Lawrence Lessig pointed out that the Times had unfairly taken the videos and pictures out of context in its descriptions. He wrote that one frequently mentioned video—the video described above as a "half-dressed man cavorting with a sexually aroused farm animal," which actually involves a man running away from a donkey—is available on YouTube,[19] and is not, as is implied by the Times article, an example of bestiality. He also argued that the Kozinski family's right to privacy was violated when the disgruntled litigant exposed the private files which were not intended for public viewing. Lessig compared this to breaking and entering a private residence.[20]
Kozinski initially refused to comment on disqualifying himself,[21] then granted a 48-hour stay after the prosecutor requested time to explore "a potential conflict of interest."[18] On June 13, Kozinski petitioned an ethics panel to investigate his own conduct. He asked Chief Justice John Roberts to assign the inquiry to a panel of judges outside the 9th Circuit's jurisdiction. Also, he said that his son, Yale, and his family or friends may have been responsible for posting some of the material.[22][23]
Kozinski had previously been involved in a dispute over government monitoring of federal court employees’ computers. Administrative Office head Ralph Mecham dropped the monitoring program, but protested in the press.[24]
On June 15, 2008, it was reported that Kozinski had recused himself from the case.[25] On June 5, 2009, the Judicial Council of the Third Circuit issued an opinion clearing Kozinski of any wrongdoing.[26][27]
Kozinski has won admirers across the political spectrum who praise his "common sense" decisions, his libertarian instinct, and his sense of humor.[1] His essays have been featured in publications such as Slate, The New Yorker, The New Republic and National Review.
| Legal offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| New seat | Judge of the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit 1985–present |
Incumbent |
| Preceded by Mary Schroeder |
Chief Judge of the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit 2007–present |
|