Friday, Judge Alex Kozinski of the 9th US Circuit Court
of Appeals, who has posted sexually explicit material on his website, recused
himself from the obscenity trial in Los Angeles. The Los Angeles Times reported
that the judge exited the high-profile obscenity trial, after he admitted,
three days ago, he had posted sexually explicit photographs and videos on his
own website.
"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,” said Kozinski.
Kozinski suspended the trial of Hollywood filmmaker Ira
Isaacs on Wednesday, because he wanted to give prosecutors the opportunity of verifying
if there was a “a potential conflict of interest concerning the court having a
. . . sexually explicit website with similar material to what is on trial here,”
said the judge. Kenneth Whitted, the prosecutor, did not comment the judge’s
decision.
On the other hand, Isaacs was disappointed, saying that he
thought Kozinski “was a fair judge,” adding that he felt “terrible” that his
trial “caused this information to come out,” said Isaacs, according to The Los
Angeles Times.
Kozinski had posted sexually explicit material on
his website and then blocked access after he was asked about the issue Tuesday evening.
Trying to defend himself, he said that, even though the material was
inappropriate, he thought that most of the videos were funny. He also added
that he wasn’t aware that his website could be seen by the public. One of his
video showed a half-naked man cavorting with a sexually aroused farm animal. The judge said that he would delete some of
the material from his site.
The judge, 57, was named chief judge of the 9th
Circuit last year. He was born in Romania and came to the U.S. when he
was 12 years-old.
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