US: Obscenity trial judge has 'porn' website

The judge in an American obscenity trial has had to suspend the hearing after it emerged his personal website contained sexually explicit images.

The material on Judge Alex Kozinski’s family site included a video of a man cavorting with a sexually aroused farm animal.

The judge, who has been rumoured as a possible candidate for the country’s Supreme Court, is currently hearing the case against a man charged with obscenity for selling films depicting bestiality and extreme fetishes.

Judge Kozinski, 57, told the Los Angeles Times he thought the material on his site could not be accessed by the public and he did not 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.”

The judge told lawyers in the obscenity case he wanted to give them time to consider whether to ask that he be disqualified and suspended the case until next week.

At best, the exposure of his website was an embarrassing turn of events for Judge Kozinski, who reached the pinnacle of a long, illustrious and colourful judicial career in November when he was appointed chief judge of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which has jurisdiction over nine western states.

The appointment capped a 26-year career on the bench that began in 1982 at age 32 when he was named chief of the newly created federal claims court, which handles lawsuits related to federal contracts.

Three years later, President Ronald Reagan appointed him to the 9th Circuit, making him the youngest federal appellate judge in the country.

President George Bush seriously considered nominating Kozinski for high court openings in 1990 and 1991, though the jurist has not received the same considerations from the current Bush administration.

But he enjoys a sterling reputation as an eloquent opinion writer and a titan on the bench even while his off-the-bench eccentricities run the gamut.

The judge was born in Romania to Holocaust survivors and went to America when he was 12. Six years later, he won a date in 1968 while appearing on the TV show “The Dating Game” after greeting the contestant with “good afternoon, flower of my heart.”

He purports to build his own computers and said he was “an authority on snowboarding” while successfully vying to win a gossip blog’s contest for “judicial hottie.”

He has written video game reviews for the Wall Street Journal, and his prolific commentary on everything from the death penalty to the use of Yiddish in the law has appeared in legal journals and mainstream media alike.

He often works 80-hour work weeks and is infamous for sending 3am. emails to the recent law school graduates who successfully win coveted one-year appointments as his law clerk.

It’s unclear whether Kozinski faces any court discipline. Circuit judges are appointed for life and can only be fired by Congress, though colleagues can impose censures.

Cathy Catterson, circuit executive for the 9th Circuit, said the issue was “a private matter of the judge at this point.”

She said the material was on a home server that was maintained “for use by his family” and that it made up only a small percentage of the items, which also included family pictures and documents.

The Times reported that Kozinski said he must have accidentally uploaded the images to his server while trying to upload something else. He also said he would delete some material, including a picture of nude women on all fours painted to look like cows, which he called “degrading,” the paper said.

The judge refused to comment as he left court.

“I’m not going to say anything,” he said. “The trial is ongoing.”