U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit refuses to recuse entire U.S. Department of Justice from representing the federal government in cases on appeal from rulings of then-U.S. District Judge Michael B. Mukasey: You can access today’s ruling at this link.

The Second Circuit’s opinion notes that “This is not the first time the country has had an Attorney General with prior experience as a judge.”

“Top court allows Guantanamo prisoners’ appeals”: James Vicini of Reuters provides this report.

Greg Stohr of Bloomberg News reports that “Guantanamo Inmates May Seek Release, High Court Says.”

And Bill Mears of CNN.com provides a report headlined “Justices: Gitmo detainees can challenge detention in U.S. courts.”

“News judgments about Kozinski’s porn”: Mark Obbie has this interesting post at his “LawBeat” blog.

BREAKING NEWS — U.S. Supreme Court issues ruling in cases challenging whether Military Commissions Act of 2006 violates the habeas corpus rights of foreign detainees held at Guantanamo Bay: According to this post at “SCOTUSblog,” “[t]he ruling below, which found for the government, is reversed. Justice Kennedy wrote the opinion. The Chief Justice, Justice Scalia, Thomas and Alito dissented.”

You can access today’s 134-page, 5-4 ruling in Boumediene v. Bush, No. 06-1195, at this link. For those wishing to view the oral argument transcript, it remains online here.

Both the Chief Justice and Justice Antonin Scalia issued dissenting opinions, and all four dissenters joined in both dissents. In his dissent, Justice Scalia writes, “The game of bait-and-switch that today’s opinion plays upon the Nation’s Commander in Chief will make the war harder on us. It will almost certainly cause more Americans to be killed.” Justice Scalia’s 25-page dissenting opinion concludes, “The Nation will live to regret what the Court has done today. I dissent.”

At “SCOTUSblog,” Lyle Denniston has a post titled “Court gives detainees habeas rights.” Lyle’s post describes the ruling as “a stunning blow to the Bush Administration in its war-on-terrorism policies.”

And Mark Sherman of The Associated Press has a report headlined “High Court: Gitmo detainees have rights in court.”

Today’s U.S. Supreme Court opinions in argued cases: The Court today issued a total of five rulings in argued cases.

Today’s first opinion in an argued case issued in Taylor v. Sturgell, No. 07-371. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg delivered the opinion for a unanimous Court. You can access the ruling at this link and the oral argument transcript at this link.

Today’s second ruling issued in Boumediene v. Bush, No. 06-1195. Justice Anthony M. Kennedy delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Justices John Paul Stevens, David H. Souter, Ginsburg, and Stephen G. Breyer joined. Justice Souter also issued a concurring opinion, in which Justices Ginsburg and Breyer joined. The Chief Justice issued a dissenting opinion, in which Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, and Samuel A. Alito, Jr. joined. Justice Scalia also issued a dissenting opinion, in which the other three dissenters also joined. You can access the ruling at this link and the oral argument transcript at this link.

Today’s third ruling issued in Republic of Philippines v. Pimentel, No. 06-1204. You can access the ruling at this link and the oral argument transcript at this link.

Today’s fourth ruling issued in Irizarry v. United States, No. 06-7517. You can access the ruling at this link and the oral argument transcript at this link.

Today’s fifth and final ruling issued in Munaf v. Geren, No. 06-1666. You can access the ruling at this link and the oral argument transcript at this link. In early coverage of this ruling, The Associated Press reports that “Court rules against 2 US citizens in Iraq.”

“Judge in porn tempest has distinguished career”: The Associated Press provides a report that begins, “Alex Kozinski is more accustomed to appearing on lists to fill U.S. Supreme Court vacancies than headlines involving pornographic scandals. But on Wednesday, the chief judge of the country’s largest federal appeals court was forced to suspend an obscenity trial he was presiding over after sexually explicit images posted to his his family’s Web site became public.”

The person responsible for alerting the news media to this story was identified late yesterday as a Los Angeles-area attorney, and in this post from very early this morning I reproduce portions of two emails that I received from that attorney after midnight this morning.

“Court Rejects Decisions of Immigration Board”: The New York Times today contains an article that begins, “In a scathing opinion, a federal appeals court in Manhattan ruled on Wednesday that immigration judges and the appellate system established as a check on their decisions committed ‘obvious errors’ by denying asylum to three Guinean women who claimed that they were victims of genital cutting back in Africa.”

My earlier coverage of yesterday’s Second Circuit ruling appears at this link.

“A Justice Orders a Pay Raise for New York’s Judges”: This article appears today in The New York Times.

And today in The New York Sun, Joseph Goldstein reports that “N.Y. Judge Orders Himself a Raise; Could Cost Taxpayers $700 Million.”

“A Child’s Death And a Crisis for Faith”: The Wall Street Journal today contains an article that begins, “The recent death from untreated diabetes of an 11-year-old Wisconsin girl has invigorated opposition to obscure laws in many states that let parents rely on prayer, rather than medicine, to heal sick children.”

“Child-abuse claims vs. parents’ rights: Supreme Court mulls whether to take a suit accusing Illinois of forcing families to give up rights.” Warren Richey has this article today in The Christian Science Monitor.

In commentary available online at FindLaw: Joanna Grossman has an essay entitled “The Supreme Court Holds that an Important Federal Civil Rights Law, Section 1981, Prohibits Retaliation as Well as Discrimination.”

And Julie Hilden has an essay entitled “The Supreme Court’s Recent Child Pornography Decision, and the Problem with Narrowly Construing Statutes with First Amendment Implications.” Julie’s essay is part one of a two-part series.

“Judge suspends L.A. obscenity trial after conceding his website had sexual images; Alex Kozinski admits he posted some of the explicit content; He says he didn’t think the public could see the site, which is now blocked”: Scott Glover has this article today in The Los Angeles Times.

Today in The San Francisco Chronicle, Bob Egelko reports that “Judge in hot water over Web site sex photos.”

And at “Concurring Opinions,” Kaimipono D. Wenger has a post titled “Judges Gone Wild.”

The person responsible for alerting the news media to this story was identified late yesterday as a Los Angeles-area attorney, and in this post from earlier this morning I reproduce portions of two very recent emails that he sent to me.

“Porn Stash Puts Obscenity Case Judge in Awkward Spot”: Josh Gerstein of The New York Sun has this article today.

“9th Circuit’s Chief Judge Snared in Web of Kink”: law.com provides this report.

“The L.A. Times’s Tipster on Kozinski’s Porn: Cyrus Sanai.” This post appears at “Patterico’s Pontifications.”

At 12:05 a.m. this morning, I received an email from Mr. Sanai that begins, “I’m the person who tipped off the LA Times about Judge Kozinski. This is all part of the ongoing misconduct proceedings against Judge Kozinski that grew out of ‘Kozinski Strikes Back,’ which you have kindly kept available for public viewing.”

The email goes on to advance a technology-based argument, whose validity I am incapable of evaluating, that only Judge Kozinski had control of the portion of the internet domain on which the material in question appeared.

Mr. Sanai and Judge Kozinski have previously crossed swords in essays that remain freely available online exclusively via “How Appealing Extra” here and here.

Update: In a follow-up email that I received from Mr. Sanai at 12:44 a.m. this morning, he writes:

I discovered this information on Xmas Eve, 2007. * * * * I immediately downloaded so much material that his internet provider cut him off. When the site went back up, Judge Kozinski had removed some of the biggest video files. * * * *
I pitched it to the Daily Journal, the Recorder, the LA Times and the WSJ through end of January 2008. I was interested in his site because of my renewed misconduct complaint against Judge Kozinski, which focused on, among other things, his placement of the transcript of Judge Thibodeau on alex.kozinski.com. Interestingly enough, your capture of that link is the only evidence that remains of this on the internet. So thank you! Terry Carter of the ABA Journal contacted me last month, and was actually working on this story when the LA Times decided to break it.

John Roemer wrote an article for the Daily Journal, which his editors killed. You find a trace of it in his piece on Kozinski in the California Lawyer.

The LA Times reporter I contacted, Henry Weinstein (who extensively covered the Manuel Real stuff) said he would get to it, then he took the buyout. I contacted Scott Glover, the reporter on the obscenity trial, last Sunday, June 8, 2008. He knew nothing about my prior contact with the LA Times; but that institution is in disarray because of the well-covered restructuring. Therefore, it would not be fair to say that the LA Times “held it”. The institutional knowledge of my prior contact disappeared * * * *

The Recorder’s executive editor, Scott Graham, is still mad at me for getting the original piece published, and would not run anything. However, they have taken on the very important material I passed on to them from Meachem six months ago. Their current article accurately summarizes Kozinski’s slapdown by Rehnquist.

* * * *

It is correct to say that the Daily Journal, the Recorder, and the WSJ deliberately held this information from the public. By mid February, 2008 all three had the same CD of material that I gave to the LA Times last Monday.

I point out, also, that the LA Times found items that were uploaded after December, 2007. The naked guy cavorting with the donkey is something I do not have and I don’t think was on the web site on December 24, 2007.

Mr. Sanai’s email states that he will be interviewed live about this matter on the Los Angeles NBC affiliate’s 11 p.m. pacific time newscast.

“Turning ‘less’ into ‘more’ would be a feat more closely associated with the mutating commandments on the barn’s wall in Animal Farm than with sincere interpretation.” Finally, a federal appellate court has refused to construe “less” to mean “more” in the appellate timing provision contained in the Class Action Fairness Act of 2005. Chief Judge Frank H. Easterbrook today issued this decision on behalf of a unanimous three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.

I argued in favor of the result that Chief Judge Easterbrook reached today in the February 13, 2006 installment of my “On Appeal” column for law.com, headlined “Less Is More: When Courts Decide a Law Means the Opposite of What It Says.”

“Chief Judge Contributed to Racy Web Site”: Adam Liptak will have this article Thursday in The New York Times.

In response to the double jeopardy aspect of this earlier post of mine, a highly regarded criminal defense appellate specialist emails, “In my opinion, Fed.R.Crim.P. 25(a) permits another judge to take over the trial (after quickly reviewing daily copy, per Rule 25(a)(2)). Mandatory recusal under 455(a) should be understood to be a ‘disability’ within the meaning of Rule 25. For that reason, termination of the trial is not ‘manifestly necessary’ and restarting the trial after termination w/o the defendant’s consent would constitute double jeopardy.”

“Unlike Others, U.S. Defends Freedom to Offend in Speech”: Adam Liptak will have this article, the latest installment in his “American Exception” series, Thursday in The New York Times.

“LA obscenity trial suspended over judge’s Web site”: The Associated Press provides a report that begins, “A federal judge has suspended the obscenity trial of a Los Angeles porn distributor following a newspaper report that the judge had sexually explicit material on his own Web site. Judge Alex Kozinski on Wednesday granted a joint motion to suspend the trial after the prosecution said it needed time to look into the issue of the judge’s Web site.”

Thursday’s edition of The Washington Post wil contain an article headlined “Judge Assailed Over Sexually Explicit Images on Web Site.”

And Agence France-Presse reports that “Bestiality trial overshadowed by judge’s animal sex video.”

Number one reason to — or not to — share a web server: The story that The Los Angeles Times broke today in a news update concerning Ninth Circuit Chief Judge Alex Kozinski continues to evolve.

Both Judge Kozinski himself — in this post at “Above the Law” — and the Ninth Circuit’s Circuit Executive — in a statement reported on at WSJ.com’s “Law Blog” — have stated that at least some of the material that is the focus of The LATimes article was placed online by Judge Kozinski’s son, Yale.

This explanation, which The LATimes article leads one to believe that Judge Kozinski did not initially offer when that newspaper’s reporters interviewed him, points out the risks and benefits of sharing a web server with another person.

The risk is that the other person may post objectionable things online that third-parties may attribute to you instead. And the benefit is that if third-parties attribute to you objectionable things found on your web server, you can always claim that those things were put there by the other person having an ability to upload things to the web server.

Thanks to those readers who have already responded to the inquiries listed in my earlier, related post. I may post some reader comments later tonight.

“Judge Who Ruled Against Pledge of Allegiance Hospitalized”: Josh Gerstein of The New York Sun has this news update about Ninth Circuit Judge Stephen Reinhardt.

This blog’s “20 questions for the appellate judge” interview with Judge Reinhardt, from February 2004, can be accessed at this link.

Should The Los Angeles Times be praised or condemned for reporting that it discovered pornographic images posted online at Ninth Circuit Chief Judge Alex Kozinski’s personal web site, and what if anything makes that discovery newsworthy? As I understand The LATimes article, the images were freely accessible to anyone who knew where on Judge Kozinski’s site to find them, but Judge Kozinski was not actively promoting the images for viewing by the general public.

Readers of this blog are invited to share their views via email [[email protected]] on any or all of the following issues, and I will post to this blog any thoughtful responses:

• Is this story newsworthy merely because a federal judge has posted pornographic images on the internet where the public can access them, even though the images are not readily available to anyone who does not know precisely where to look on the web site that the judge operates?
• Is this story newsworthy only because the judge in question is currently presiding over an obscenity trial, even though none of the images on the judge’s personal web site have been reported to be obscene?
• Should The Los Angeles Times have published this article?
• Forget about the purient aspects of this story, is the story newsworthy because a federal appellate judge may have engaged in copyright infringement by posting images presumably belonging to others on his personal web site?
• Should publication of this article in The Los Angeles Times cause Judge Kozinski to recuse or to at least survey the jury to ensure that the jury can remain fair to both the prosecution and the defendant in the ongoing obscenity prosecution over which he is now presiding?
• For any criminal procedure gurus in the audience, if Judge Kozinski decides to recuse from presiding over the criminal obscenity prosecution in which a jury has already been selected and perhaps seated, can a new judge be brought in to take over the trial from that point forward, or will it be necessary to declare a mistrial and start over?
• Can the defendant in the obscenity prosecution successfully assert double jeopardy to avoid another trial if Judge Kozinski concludes that he has no other choice but to recuse and that the ground for recusal is not subject to waiver by the parties?
• Should this type of news coverage disqualify one from consideration to fill a future U.S. Supreme Court vacancy?

Some may recall that Judge Kozinski was in the news in 2001 for opposing the central monitoring of internet usage in federal judges’ chambers. Neil A. Lewis covered the matter in articles that you can access here and here (and see box 25 of the L. Ralph Mecham papers). And Judge Kozinski is credited with advising David Lat on how Lat could avoid having the source of Lat’s internet access revealed when Lat was sending emails using the “Article III Groupie” persona.

In the most recent coverage of today’s news, The Associated Press reports that “9th Circuit judge had sexual images on Web page.” Wired.com’s “Threat Level” blog has a post titled “Chief Judge in Obscenity Case Caught Posting Porn.” And Slate has reposted Judge Kozinski’s 1996 Slate Diary with the teaser “When the California Porn Judge Went to a Lingerie Party.” Back in 1985, when Judge Kozinski was confirmed to the Ninth Circuit at the age of 35 by a vote of 54 to 43, Ben A. Franklin had this interesting report in The New York Times.

“9th Circuit’s chief judge posted sexually explicit matter on his website; Alex Kozinski, who is presiding over an obscenity trial in L.A., acknowledges that he had posted sexually explicit photos and videos; He says he didn’t think the public could access the site”: The Los Angeles Times has posted a news update that begins, “One of the highest-ranking federal judges in the United States, who is currently presiding over an obscenity trial in Los Angeles, has maintained a publicly accessible website featuring sexually explicit photos and videos. Alex Kozinski, chief judge of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, acknowledged in an interview with The Times that he had posted the materials, which included a photo of naked women on all fours painted to look like cows and a video of a half-dressed man cavorting with a sexually aroused farm animal. Some of the material was inappropriate, he conceded, although he defended other sexually explicit content as ‘funny.'”

Chief Judge Kozinski is currently presiding over the obscenity trial of Ira Isaacs, which is the case that is the subject of the post immediately below.

Update: The LATimes allows readers to comment on its articles, and reader comments on this article can be accessed here.

Los Angeles tells Tampa, Florida, “Our obscenity is far more disgusting than yours”: The Associated Press provides a report headlined “LA obscenity case nauseates some potential jurors” that begins, “What violates community obscenity standards in the nation’s reputed pornography capital? Federal prosecutors think they have a case.”

Monday’s edition of The Los Angeles Times contained an article headlined “Upcoming trial will see hours of hard-core fetish pornography; Ira Isaacs says his films, which feature bestiality and defecation, have artistic value; Federal prosecutors say they are criminally obscene; Hours of footage will help jurors decide who’s right.”

Yesterday’s edition of The Times of London contained an article headlined “The Isaacs pornography case: strong stomachs wanted; Yes, people can easily be shocked; But they often enjoy it.”

And today in The St. Petersburg Times, columnist Sue Carlton has an essay entitled “Is porn really our biggest problem?”

“NY court grants 3 women new chance to stay in US”: The Associated Press provides a report that begins, “A Manhattan appeals court has granted three women who suffered genital mutilation in their native Guinea a new chance to stay in the United States. The federal appeals court says the U.S. government should have presumed the women would face further harm once it was established that they had undergone genital mutilation.”

You can access today’s ruling of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit at this link.

“Government Loses High Court Case on Paralegal Costs”: Marcia Coyle of The National Law Journal provides this report.

“Turning Point: The Supreme Court; The court is political, and more than Roe v. Wade is at stake.” Zachary Roth has this article online at Columbia Journalism Review.

The appellate paparazzi can be ruthless: CNN.com reports that “Ken Starr helping lawmakers fight paparazzi.”

“Ex-steelworker, Nazi guard loses deportation appeal”: The Associated Press provides this report on a ruling that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit issued today.

Texarkana arcana: At “The Volokh Conspiracy,” Eugene Volokh has a post titled “Article III, Congress, and the Texarkana Courthouse,” quoting Brian Kalt.

Longtime readers of this blog may recall that after I attended the Eighth Circuit‘s Judicial Conference in Brainerd, Minnesota in July 2006, I received from another of the attendees this eagerly-awaited postcard depicting the U.S. Post Office & Court House in Texarkana.

“Gay rights: Lesbos islanders go to court in bid to reclaim the word lesbian.” This article appears today in The Guardian (UK).

The Telegraph (UK) reports today that “Lesbos islanders want to stop homosexual women calling themselves Lesbians; The inhabitants of the Aegean island of Lesbos have began a court action that will attempt to prevent homosexual women from calling themselves Lesbians.”

And The Associated Press reports that “3 from Lesbos sue gay group over ‘Lesbian’ name.” (This CNN.com version of The AP’s report contains a photograph of a male lesbian.)

Earlier, columnist John Walsh of The Independent (UK) had an essay entitled “Who are the real lesbians?”

And Howard Richler had an op-ed in The Toronto Star entitled “People of Lesbos lay claim to name – but whose word is it? ‘Lesbian’ is entrenched in English to refer to homosexual women; How about Lesbonians?”

Dahlia Lithwick and Benjamin Wittes on Bloggingheads.tv: You can launch the diavlog by clicking here.

Two Mondays from now, on June 23rd, Ben’s new book will be the subject of this event in Washington, D.C.

“The game’s up: jurors playing Sudoku abort trial.” Wednesday’s edition of The Sydney Morning Herald contains an article that begins, “After 105 witnesses and three months of evidence, a drug trial costing $1 million was aborted yesterday when it emerged that jurors had been playing Sudoku since the trial’s second week. In the District Court in Sydney, Judge Peter Zahra discharged the jury after hearing evidence from two accused men, one of their solicitors and the jury forewoman, who admitted that she and four other jurors had been diverting themselves in the jury box by playing the popular numbers game.”

One more reason to feel blue: The company that manages and produces the Las Vegas production of the Blue Man Group today lost its legal challenge to an adverse NLRB decision. Adding insult to injury, today’s ruling of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit denied the petitioner’s motion that the court “take judicial notice of several artistic reviews of the Blue Man Group show that aptly describe the unique and highly unusual experience of attending a Blue Man Group performance.”

Update: At “The BLT: The Blog of Legal Times,” Joe Palazzolo has a post titled “D.C. Circuit Gives Blue Man Group Two Thumbs Down.”

“Abortion foes take battle beyond Roe; Makeup of high court is political focal point, but activists cutting access with ruling intact”: James Oliphant has this article today in The Chicago Tribune.