“Courting Conflict”: The New York Times today contains an editorial that begins, “Judges must be impartial — in both appearance and reality — so federal law sensibly requires that they disqualify themselves from cases if they own stock in a company that is a party in the matter. It would be best if all judges ordered their investments to avoid conflicts. But the issue is most acute for Supreme Court justices, who cannot be replaced by another jurist.”

“Kozinski A No-Show”: Today at “The BLT: The Blog of Legal Times,” a post begins, “Alex Kozinski, the chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, was supposed to be on hand Saturday for an American Constitution Society panel Rights in Conflict: Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity, and Religious Liberty. Perhaps not surprisingly, Kozinski was a no-show.”

If he were at the ACS National Convention today, perhaps Chief Judge Kozinski instead decided to attend a panel titled “The End of Anonymity? Threats to Privacy in a Brave New World,” which was scheduled to occur at precisely the same time as the panel on which Chief Judge Kozinski had been slated to serve.

“Judge Alex Kozinski recuses himself from obscenity trial; The 9th Circuit chief judge makes the decision three days after admitting he had posted sexually explicit photos and videos on his personal website”: Scott Glover has this article today in The Los Angeles Times.

The New York Daily News reports today that “Judge Alex Kozinski recuses himself from trial of porn maker Ira Isaacs.”

The News Tribune of Tacoma, Washington contains an editorial entitled “Online is forever, and it’s usually not private.”

And syndicated columnist Susan Estrich has an essay entitled “Good Humor.”

“Risque Images, Music Tied to 9th Circuit Chief’s Site Raises Ethics Questions”: ABA Journal magazine has posted online this lengthy article by Terry Carter.

That publication has also posted online a remarkable letter (back-up copy posted here) dated October 12, 2007 from L. Ralph Mecham, former director of the Administrative Office of the United States Courts, which accuses Ninth Circuit Judge Alex Kozinski of having committed in 2001 a criminal offense against the federal judiciary’s computer system that constituted a felony under federal law.

“Over Guantanamo, Justices Come Under Election-Year Spotlight”: Linda Greenhouse will have this news analysis Saturday in The New York Times.

Tomorrow’s newspaper will also report that “Lawyers for Detainees Plan to Use Justices’ Ruling to Mount New Attacks.”

The Associated Press is reporting: Now available online are articles headlined “McCain slams Supreme Court on terrorist detainees” and “Michigan governor vetoes ban on abortion procedure.”

Meanwhile, in other news, Pete Yost reports that “Court says campaign finance rules too weak.” My earlier coverage of today’s D.C. Circuit ruling appears at this link.

“U.S. judges can’t pull Americans from Iraqi courts; Thursday’s Supreme Court ruling involved men accused of kidnapping-for-ransom schemes”: Warren Richey has this article today in The Christian Science Monitor.

And The Washington Post reports today that “Ability to Challenge Transfer to Foreign Custody Is Limited.”

“I’ve tried to avoid blogging about the Judge Kozinski story, because I’m so obviously biased on the subject.” So begins an interesting and thoughtful post from Eugene Volokh at “The Volokh Conspiracy.”

“Appeals court denies Texaco’s tax refund request”: The Associated Press provides a report that begins, “A federal appeals court has denied Texaco Inc.’s bid for a $101 million tax refund after paying $1.25 billion to settle an overcharging complaint.”

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

“R. Kelly acquitted”: The Chicago Tribune provides a news update that begins, “A Cook County jury on Friday acquitted R&B superstar R. Kelly of child pornography charges, marking the end of a high-profile trial rich in courtroom drama and celebrity intrigue.”

And The Chicago Sun-Times provides a news update headlined “R. Kelly not guilty on all counts.”

“Judge Alex Kozinski recuses himself from obscenity trial; The 9th Circuit chief judge makes the decision three days after admitting he had posted sexually explicit photos and videos on his personal website”: The Los Angeles Times provides this news update.

And The Associated Press reports that “Judge under scrutiny declares mistrial in LA obscenity case.”

I have posted the recusal order online at this link.

In an earlier post here at “How Appealing,” an experienced and highly regarded federal criminal defense appellate specialist opined that declaring a mistrial due to recusal could provide the defendant with a double jeopardy defense to any retrial.

D.C. Circuit allows lawsuit to proceed seeking to recover from the Russian government thousands of historic religious books, manuscripts, and documents claimed to belong to the Chabad-Lubavitch organization: You can access today’s ruling at this link.

D.C. Circuit once again rejects certain revised regulations that the Federal Election Commission promulgated to implement the McCain-Feingold Act, formally known as the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002: Circuit Judge David S. Tatel, with whom I had the pleasure of having lunch last Thursday (in a small group that also included Dahlia Lithwick), is the author of today’s ruling of a unanimous three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.

“Guantanamo Ruling May Roil Obama, McCain With No Alternatives”: James Rowley and Greg Stohr of Bloomberg News have this report.

The Associated Press is reporting: Mark Sherman has an article headlined “Mukasey: Detainee ruling won’t stop terror trials.”

David Espo has a news analysis headlined “Court’s course in next president’s hands.”

And an article is headlined “Lawyer: Gitmo ruling helps US-held terror suspect.”

“Justices Say Detainees Can Seek Release”: Robert Barnes has this front page article today in The Washington Post. The newspaper also contains a front page news analysis headlined “Administration Strategy for Detention Now in Disarray” and an article headlined “Detainees Now Have Access to Federal Court.”

Today in The Los Angeles Times, David G. Savage reports that “Guantanamo detainees have constitutional rights, Supreme Court says; In their third rebuke of Bush administration policy, the justices rule 5 to 4 that the prisoners can petition a federal judge for their freedom — the right of habeas corpus.” The newspaper also contains a news analysis headlined “Basis for offshore prison is undercut“; an editorial entitled “Habeas for Guantanamo detainees: The Supreme Court confirms the prisoners’ rights to challenge their detention under the Constitution“; and an op-ed by David Kaye entitled “Scalia’s fear factor: His dissent in a key terror case makes it harder to solve the Gitmo problem.”

The New York Times contains a news analysis headlined “Detention Camp Remains, but Not Its Legal Rationale“; an article headlined “McCain and Obama Split on Justices’ Guantánamo Ruling“; and an editorial entitled “Justice 5, Brutality 4.”

In USA Today, Joan Biskupic and Alan Gomez have a front page article headlined “Ruling lays path from Guantanamo to U.S. courts; Justices’ 5-4 vote bucks Bush’s detainee policy.” Biskupic also has a separate article headlined “Ruling maintains high court’s streak on Gitmo cases; Slim split typical of post-9/11 cases.” An editorial is entitled “Latest Guantanamo ruling reaffirms American values; Court sends powerful message, upholds rights for detainees.” And Richard Samp has an op-ed entitled “An inexplicable power grab: Ruling puts lives at risk, usurps the role of Congress and the president.”

In The Chicago Tribune, James Oliphant reports that “Court backs Gitmo inmates; Detainees must get day in U.S. court, justices rule.”

In The Wall Street Journal, Jess Bravin has a front page article headlined “High Court Rebuffs Bush Over Detainees.” The newspaper also contains an editorial entitled “President Kennedy.”

In The Miami Herald, Michael Doyle and Carol Rosenberg report that “Scores of Guantanamo prisoners could be ordered free after ruling; The Supreme Court’s ruling Thursday in favor of prisoners could mean that scores of men could soon be released from Guantanamo Bay.”

law.com’s Tony Mauro reports that “Supreme Court Says Guantanamo Detainees Have Right to Challenge Detention; Scalia in dissent: ‘The nation will regret what the Court has done today.’”

And in The New York Sun, Joseph Goldstein reports that “Bush To Bow to the Nine on POWs; Habeas Corpus Is Extended to Guantanamo Prisoners.” The newspaper also contains an editorial entitled “Grandeur of Justice, II.”

“Judge, prosecutor secretly dated, appeal says; Death row inmate set for execution Tuesday says he didn’t get impartial trial”: Chuck Lindell has this article today in The Austin American-Statesman.

And The New York Times reports today that “Texas Inmate Says Judge and Prosecutor Had Affair.”

Porn-posting judge asks to be probed: Today in The San Francisco Chronicle, Bob Egelko reports that “Judge invites probe into his steamy Web site.”

Today in The San Jose Mercury News, Howard Mintz has an article headlined “‘Rebel’ judge lands in flap over Web site” that begins, “In early December, Alex Kozinski, rumpled as always, leaned back in a leather chair in his San Francisco office, pausing to consider what he most wanted to accomplish as the new chief judge of the nation’s largest federal appeals court. ‘What I’m hoping for,’ Kozinski quipped, ‘is an entirely forgettable seven years where nothing happens.’ Sorry, judge.”

The New York Daily News contains an article headlined “It takes one to judge one: Jurist in porn trial caught with fetish pics.” The article’s sidebar is titled “This jurist goes by the kook.”

At Wired’s “Threat Level” blog, Kim Zetter has a post titled “Critic Says Judge’s Web Site Was Distributing MP3 Files and Was Target of Previous Complaint.”

“Lessig Blog” has a post titled “The Kozinski mess.”

The Los Angeles Times contains an editorial entitled “Don’t judge Kozinski by his porn: An apology from the 9th Circuit judge for his computer collection of porn isn’t necessary; He just needs to say, ‘So what?’” The editorial does, however, call on Judge Kozinski to recuse from continuing to preside as trial judge over a federal obscenity trial now underway in Los Angeles.

And Bloomberg News columnist Ann Woolner has an essay entitled “Porn Everywhere, Filmmaker and Judge Both Have It.”

Available online from law.com: An article reports that “Divided 2nd Circuit Denies Hearing by Full Court in Bias Case.” My earlier coverage of yesterday’s Second Circuit order and accompanying opinions appears at this link.

And Shannon P. Duffy reports that “3rd Circuit Urged to Unseal Docket and Other Records in Abortion Case.” His article begins, “Lawyers for The Legal Intelligencer filed court papers Thursday urging the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to reconsider a recent opinion that approved a trial judge’s decision to seal all documents — including the court’s docket — in a precedent-setting case brought by a woman who claims she was fired because she had an abortion. In a separate motion, The Legal‘s lawyers, Robert C. Clothier and Brett A. Berman of Fox Rothschild, asked the 3rd Circuit to unseal the case at the appellate level where all documents and the court’s docket are likewise under seal.”

“Minority recruiting is paying off, U-M asserts; Diversity almost same in year since Prop 2 took effect”: This article appears today in The Detroit Free Press.

“U.S. Senate to vote on Mich. judge’s nomination”: The Detroit News today contains an article that begins, “The Senate Judiciary Committee voted largely along party lines Thursday to send to the Senate floor the controversial and long-languishing nomination of Helene White of Michigan to the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The vote was 11-8, with all Democrats voting for her, and all but one Republican — Orrin Hatch of Utah — voting against her.”

And The Associated Press reports that “U.S. Senate committee OKs 3 Michigan judicial nominees.”

“What’s Next for Kozinski?” law.com provides this report, along with a related article headlined “Experts Disagree Over Whether Kozinski Should Recuse From Obscenity Trial.”

If you think that what Judge Kozinski did was bad, I know of federal appellate judges who have publicly admitted to viewing child pornography: Of course, those other judges did that in the context of adjudicating appeals in which a criminal defendant was challenging the sufficiency of the evidence supporting a child pornography conviction.

Here are some random thoughts in the aftermath of the news story that The Los Angeles Times broke yesterday.

• The attorney who drew the material on Judge Kozinski’s web site to the media’s attention first clashed with Judge Kozinski over whether non-precedential, unpublished opinions should be citeable. See here and here. Who knew that the spirited dispute over Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 32.1 would lead to this?
• Sure he apologized, just not to you — Judge Kozinski’s essay replying to the attorney’s essay led the attorney to initiate a judicial misconduct proceeding that was terminated by means of an order signed by the Ninth Circuit’s then-chief judge saying, among other things, that Judge Kozinski had apologized for his actions. Toward the conclusion of this lengthy article published in April 2008 in The California Lawyer, the complainant says that Judge Kozinski in fact had not apologized to him. Even if that’s true, Judge Kozinski still may have apologized — to the Ninth Circuit’s then-chief judge.
• How uninterested were The Los Angeles Times, The Wall Street Journal, and California’s two leading legal newspapers in this story when it was first brought to their attention in January 2008 (see the source’s explanation in my update to this post from very early this morning)? Despite Mark Obbie’s views regarding the newsworthiness of this matter, those four publications — which each apparently had been provided with a CD containing many of the images and other files copied from Judge Kozinski’s web site — took absolutely no action to contact Judge Kozinski to learn his side of the story. [Update: Attorney Sanai emails to advise that The LATimes did not possess the CD until the last week or so, and thus only the other three publications had their CDs for a significant amount of time.] Had even one of those publications contacted him, you can be certain that the material in question would have been removed from the web long before Tuesday night of this week.

In what some may view as an ironic coincidence, Judge Kozinski is scheduled to appear this Saturday on a breakout panel titled “Rights in Conflict: Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity and Religious Liberty” at the American Constitution Society National Convention in Washington, D.C. (see page 4 of this PDF file). At precisely the same time, the ACS Convention will also feature another breakout panel titled “The End of Anonymity? Threats to Privacy in a Brave New World” featuring, among others, Law Professors Orin Kerr and Jeffrey Rosen.

“Supreme Court: Guantanamo Detainees Have Rights in Court; In Stinging Defeat for Government, Detainees Have Right to Challenge Detentions.” Jan Crawford Greenburg and Ariane De Vogue of ABC News have this report. Jan may soon be hitting the campaign trail.

And CBS News legal analyst Andrew Cohen has a “CourtWatch” essay entitled “Four Strikes, You’re Out; High Court Justifiably Checks Executive And Legislative Branch Power Over Terror Trials – Again.”

“Judge in Obscenity Trial Linked to Porn Web Page”: This audio segment (RealPlayer required) featuring an interview with Los Angeles Times reporter Scott Glover appeared on this evening’s broadcast of NPR’s “All Things Considered.”

Friday’s issue of The Independent (UK) contains an article headlined “Obscenity trial halted as judge admits putting porn on his website.”

And the organization Concerned Women for America has issued a news release titled “Judge Alex Kozinski Must Resign; California judge overseeing obscenity trial admits his website contains explicit material.”

“Justices Rule Terror Suspects Can Appeal in Civilian Courts”: Linda Greenhouse will have this article Friday in The New York Times.

“Joyce’s trial to move out of town; Former judge to be tried in Pittsburgh”: Yesterday’s edition of The Erie Times-News contained an article that begins, “Former state Superior Court Judge Michael T. Joyce, who made a name for himself with a long judicial career in Erie, will stand trial about 130 miles to the south, in Pittsburgh. Citing local media coverage of Joyce’s federal indictment on fraud and money-laundering charges, a federal judge has made the rare decision to move Joyce’s trial from the federal courthouse in Erie, where Joyce was indicted, to the federal courthouse in Pittsburgh.”

“The Enemy Within: Who are we more afraid of: enemy combatants or federal courts?” Dahlia Lithwick has this jurisprudence essay online at Slate.

His life is an open book (albeit somewhat unwittingly): The Associated Press reports that “Judge wants panel to investigate his porn postings.”

And The Los Angeles Times provides a news update headlined “Alex Kozinski calls for investigation into his porn postings; The Calif. judge asked an ethics panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to initiate proceedings after the disclosure about his trove of sexually explicit material.”

“Gun Control Group Braces for Court Loss; ‘We’ve Lost the Battle on What the 2nd Amendment Means,’ Brady Campaign Head Says”: ABC News provides this report.

The case may be cert.-worthy, but that doesn’t make it worthy of en banc review from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit: The Second Circuit — which stubbornly clings to the now superseded “in banc” terminology — today has issued yet another decision demonstrating just how difficult it is to obtain en banc review from that court. The vote on whether to grant en banc review in this particular case was 7-6. Today’s order is accompanied by two opinions concurring in the denial of en banc review and one opinion dissenting from it. The order also notes that additional concurring or dissenting opinions may yet be filed.

“Meet The Cow Porn Judge!” Sara K. Smith has this post at “Wonkette.”

Tony Mauro is reporting: At “The BLT: The Blog of Legal Times,” he has posts titled “Dramatic Day at the Supreme Court” and “A Goodbye for Greenhouse.”

“Court Says Guantanamo Detainees Have Right to Challenge Detention”: Robert Barnes of The Washington Post has this news update.

David G. Savage of The Los Angeles Times has a news update headlined “Supreme Court again says Guantanamo prisoners should have rights; For the third time in six years, the justices reject the Bush Administration’s view that enemy combatants do not have a right to habeas corpus – a hearing before a judge; The practical effects of the ruling, though, are unclear.”

In Friday’s edition of The Christian Science Monitor, Warren Richey will have an article headlined “Guantanamo detainees win right to court review; The US Supreme Court ruled 5 to 4 Thursday that those held in Guantanamo can challenge their detention.”

And Michael Doyle of McClatchy Newspapers reports that “Supreme Court rules Guantanamo prisoners have right to sue in U.S. courts.”

The Associated Press is reporting: Now available online are articles headlined “Detainee ruling triggers scramble among DC judges“; “Court ruling hinders Marcos victims seeking funds“; “Supreme Court rejects limits on FOIA lawsuits“; and “Court rules against defendant in sentencing case.”