Kozinski Cancels and Yoo Misses Speaking Gigs at 9th Circuit Conference
The annual judicial conference held by the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is getting lots of attention in the legal press because of high-profile figures who canceled or missed speaking engagements there.
One of them is the conference’s chief judge, Alex Kozinski, who ordered an ethics investigation into his own behavior after revelations that he had posted sexually explicit materials on his website. Kozinski canceled a scheduled question-and-answer session, the Daily Journal reports (sub. req.).
While Kozinski is keeping a low profile, the lawyer who found the racy materials is not. Cyrus Sanai obtained media credentials to the event as a reporter for LA Weekly and claimed Kozinski ordered him evicted from a welcoming reception, the story says. All reporters had been warned in advance that they were not allowed in the reception.
Meanwhile, University of California-Berkeley law professor John Yoo, who wrote the so-called torture memos when he was a Justice Department official, didn’t show up for a panel discussion, the Daily Journal reports in a separate story. The panel’s subject: Does the president have to obey the law?
Circuit Judge Consuelo Callahan said Yoo couldn’t be there because he had been “unexpectedly detained” at the airport. “Could Yoo have fallen afoul of the terrorist watch list?” the story says. “Did a posse of civil libertarians make a citizens’ arrest?”
The answer is none of the above. It turned out the delay was caused by the need to fix mechanical problems on his jet.
