Ex-Court Exec Files Ethics Complaint Claiming Kozinski Disabled Anti-Porn Software
The former top administrator for the federal judiciary has filed an ethics complaint that says Chief Judge Alex Kozinski should be disciplined along with two other judges on the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in connection with the disabling of a court porn-screening system.
The new complaint was filed yesterday by Ralph Mecham, the retired director of the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, Bloomberg reports. He claims Kozinski broke into the computer security system to disable the screening software, and the two other judges helped make it possible. Kozinski endangered court security for judges with “impunity,” Mecham wrote.
Kozinski already faces one ethics complaint that claims he posted sexually explicit images on his personal website. Mecham filed the new complaint with the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, the court designated to consider the earlier complaint filed by a lawyer who says he found the sexual materials.
The other 9th Circuit judges targeted in Mecham’s complaint are Sidney Thomas and Mary Schroeder, the court’s former chief judge. Mecham alleges Thomas and Schroeder voted to approve the computer tampering and helped cover it up, the Bloomberg story says.
Mecham claims the Administrative Office has refused to supply documents to support his ethics complaint. It resurrects Mecham’s prior allegations about the computer incident, outlined in a letter to the U.S. Judicial Conference. In the complaint, Mecham says Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist had recommended that Kozinski be disciplined for disabling the court’s porn-filtering software in 2001, but a committee of federal judges did not comply, the Bloomberg story says.
Mecham says Rehnquist told him, “Tell Kozinski to watch pornography at home and not in his own court.” After the incident, according to Mecham, Kozinski sought to have him fired, but was not successful.
Kozinski’s lawyer, Mark Holscher, told Bloomberg that Mecham’s allegations were reviewed several years ago and found to be baseless. “It is unfortunate that he would raise them now with purported quotes from Chief Justice Rehnquist after he passed away.”
