Here’s a question for everyone who has looked at the images posted on my site from Judge Kozinski’s web site.

Are the images more offensive or less offensive than you thought they would be from the text description?

I could be wrong, but I think that on the whole, most people will say that the actual images are slightly less offensive than one would expect from a text description.

Context is key. For example, if the aroused donkey video I linked last night is truly the video described in the article, the man is not “cavorting” with the donkey. He is trying to keep the donkey away. The video attempts to be humorous, not prurient. The newspaper should have made that clear.

However. I admit to being fairly shocked when I saw some of these images for the first time late last night. The picture of the young man fellating himself was especially jarring to me, for whatever reason.

What do you think? My question goes to all the posted images.

For clarity, please begin your comment by clearly stating whether the images were more offensive, less offensive, or no different from what you been led to believe from a text description.

[posted by Justin Levine]

Another classic dissent. Read the whole thing beginning at pg. 110 of this PDF document of the court’s opinion.

But here is a starting taste, along with the ending paragraph (note how Scalia conspicuously declines to write “I respectfully dissent” as is the usual custom for Justices):

“Today, for the first time in our Nation’s history, the Court confers a constitutional right to habeas corpus on alien enemies detained abroad by our military forces in the course of an ongoing war. THE CHIEF JUSTICE’s dissent, which I join, shows that (more…)

Following up on my previous post about the dispute between attorney Cyrus Sanai and Judge Alex Kozinski:

Sanai told me that he filed a complaint alleging misconduct by Kozinski for commenting on a pending case — Sanai’s petition for rehearing en banc of a legal issue related to his parents’ divorce. Sanai also complained that Kozinski had put materials related to the case on Kozinski’s web site. This, Kozinski clearly did. Howard Bashman has preserved Kozinski’s piece about Sanai. It purports to link a .pdf critical of Sanai. You can see the link by right-clicking the hyperlink in Kozinski’s piece that says “(read the PDF)” and checking “properties.” It goes to this link: http://alex.kozinski.com/judge.thibodeau.pdf.

When the Ninth Circuit’s Judicial Council finally ruled on Sanai’s complaint, it was in this order. It found no misconduct on the unnamed judge’s part, but noted that the judge had nevertheless apologized for any appearance of impropriety.

Sanai says he was surprised to see this language in the order:

A limited inquiry was conducted pursuant to 28 U.S.C. section 352(a), but found no posting of complainant’s case-related information on any website maintained by the judge.

Sanai researched the issue online. He claims that his research, using the Wayback Machine and search engine caches, revealed that the web site had been taken down months earlier. Weeks after the Judicial Council’s order was issued, Sanai says, the site came back up.

Sanai concluded that Kozinski had been trying to hide something from the Judicial Council by taking down the site, and decided he wanted to find out what that was. When Sanai ran a Google search plugging the name of Kozinski’s site into the search engine, hits came back to .mp3 sharing sites, saying that songs like Monty Python’s “Lumberjack” song could be downloaded at URLs located in a subdirectory of Kozinski’s site: http://alex.kozinski.com/stuff. This is the subdirectory that had the porn.

Sanai believes that Kozinski was actively sharing these files. As I wrote in my post from earlier this morning:

Judge Kozinski’s site had many .mp3 music files. If you do a Google search for http://alex.kozinski.com, page 2 of the results gives you this page. It includes a link to a site that shares .mp3 files, and which refers to the alex.kozinski.com/stuff subdirectory for a download of a Monty Python song. Mr. Sanai maintains that this, together with other evidence, is an indication that Judge Kozinski was sharing .mp3 files.

Sanai believes that Kozinski’s sharing of files indicates hypocrisy on Kozinski’s part, because of the position he took in the dissent in this case (starting at page 7864), arguing that credit card companies should be liable for copyright infringement if they facilitate the infringement.

This, as I have previously suggested, is where Kozinski may end up being vulnerable. The porn, titillating as it is, is really a secondary issue. If he was file-sharing .mp3s, after having taken a hardline position against infringers in judicial opinions, it could expose him to charges of hypocrisy.

[by Justin Levine – not Patterico]

1. In looking over some of the actual material that was reportedly on Judge Kozinski’s site, I will confess that I had already seen at least half of these items on the Internet. Some of these items had been e-mailed to me. These are typical ‘viral videos’ that are shared by people with crude senses of humor (to which I plead guilty from time to time – it is how I have managed to maintain my radio job). I usually don’t save them on my own computer – but only because I generally know where to access them online. I have several friends who store this kind of stuff on their own computers. I’d just be curious to know if Kozinski had the 2 Girls 1 Cup video on his site. [Don’t worry Patterico – I won’t link to the video itself on this site without your express permission. 😛 ]

2. This admittedly is a legitimate story – but only because (more…)

You most certainly did get my attention. Thank you for your wise and insightful concurring [PDF] opinion which should be read by all California bloggers.

Oh, by the way, WTF is up with designating this very important opinion as ‘unpublished’?? Please do what you can to correct this travesty.

Yours Truly,

Justin Levine

[Guest blogger at Patterico.com]