Report: Smut-case judge posted explicit images

updated 10:04 p.m. ET June 11, 2008

LOS ANGELES - A federal judge suspended the obscenity trial of a Los Angeles porn distributor Wednesday 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.

The judge told the jury to return on Monday. The panel spent hours at the Pasadena offices of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals watching videos depicting bestiality and extreme fetishes.

Kozinski is chief justice of the 9th Circuit but is serving as a trial judge in the obscenity case.  Kozinski said he thought the material on his Web site couldn't be seen by the public, the Los Angeles Times reported on its Web site. The images included a video of a "half-dressed man cavorting with a sexually aroused farm animal," the newspaper reported.

Kozinski, who has since blocked public access to the site, said he didn't believe 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 revelation about Kozinski came as opening statements were under way in the trial of Ira Isaacs, a businessman accused of breaking U.S. obscenity laws by distributing pornographic movies that depict extreme fetishes, including bestiality.

Kozinski, 57, was assigned to oversee the trial in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles under a program in which appellate judges occasionally handle criminal trials at the district court level.

"I have no comment on the merits of the story," Kozinski told trial attorneys, without jurors present, when they reconvened Wednesday afternoon at a 9th Circuit courthouse conference room in Pasadena.

Kozinski said he would consider any motion if either side wanted to take him off the case.

"I'm very sorry I didn't know about this before the jury was sworn," the judge said.

Isaacs' attorney, Roger Jon Diamond, told the judge he opposes recusal.

Prosecutors exploring options
The prosecutor, Department of Justice lawyer Kenneth Whitted, said the government was conferring internally about its options. He said he would have an answer about recusal by Thursday.

Cathy Catterson, circuit executive for the 9th Circuit, declined to comment on whether Kozinski would recuse himself from the obscenity trial.

"It's a private matter of the judge at this point," she said.

Catterson 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 pictures and documents of "personal family interest."

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