I remember reading about Judge Alex Kozinski when news broke that he had been caught having pornographic images on his personal website. To me there was nothing wrong with it. The pictures were all of adults, so who really cares? Yeah I know – the religious freaks.
Well a judicial council decided to take up the issue and have released their findings:
A panel of judges assigned to investigate concluded Kozinski’s “possession of sexually explicit offensive material combined with his carelessness in failing to safeguard his sphere of privacy was judicially imprudent.” His actions, the panel wrote, “can reasonably be seen as having resulted in embarrassment to the institution of the federal judiciary.”
He wasn’t disciplined, but their findings really perked my interests, particularly the “carelessness in failing to safeguard his sphere of privacy “ part. So it’s not what he did, it’s the fact that he got caught. I wonder if more judges will tell defendants that in court rooms.