The sexual harassment scandal that has swept the nation ended the career of a prominent federal judge Monday.
WASHINGTON — The sexual harassment scandal that has swept the nation spelled the end Monday for one of its most prominent federal judges.
Alex Kozinski, who once served as the chief judge of the massive U. S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, announced his immediate retirement following accusations by 15 women.
Among the charges against Kozinski, 67, are that he asked his law clerks to watch pornography in his judge’s chambers, and that he touched and spoke to some of them inappropriately.
The 9th Circuit had opened an inquiry into his alleged misconduct last Thursday and asked Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts to transfer it to a neutral court. On Friday, Roberts instructed the 2nd Circuit appeals court, based in New York, to conduct the probe.
“It grieves me to learn that I caused any of my clerks to feel uncomfortable; this was never my intent,” Kozinski said. “For this, I sincerely apologize.”
In announcing his retirement, he added, “I cannot be an effective judge and simultaneously fight this battle. Nor would such a battle be good for my beloved federal judiciary.”
Kozinski’s alleged pattern of behavior with his clerks — who are customarily young and recent law school graduates — was first reported by The Washington Post .
For decades, he has been one of the nation’s most well-known and oft-quoted judges. He is also one of the most prolific Supreme Court “feeder” judges. More than 60 of his law clerks have gone on to clerk at the Supreme Court, half of them for Justice Anthony Kennedy of California.
Kozinski was first named to the appeals court in 1985 by President Ronald Reagan. At 35, he was the youngest federal appeals court judge in the country. From 2007-14, he was the circuit’s chief judge.
A native of Romania and the child of Holocaust survivors, Kozinski came to the United States at age 12.
In 1968, he appeared on the popular TV show “The Dating Game” and planted what the online magazine Slate recently called an “egregious kiss” on a contestant.
He graduated from UCLA and its law school and went on to clerk for Kennedy at the 9th Circuit, then for Supreme Court Chief Justice Warren Burger.
On the 9th Circuit, he has been an occasionally unpredictable conservative. In 2014, he said the nation’s practice of executing prisoners by lethal injection “is a misguided effort to mask the brutality of executions by making them look serene and beautiful” and called instead for death by firing squad.
Earlier this year, he dissented when his court declined to reconsider a three-judge panel’s ruling against President Trump’s immigration travel ban. Kozinski said Trump’s statements as a candidate in 2016 should not affect the case.
“Even if a politician’s past statements were utterly clear and consistent, using them to yield a specific constitutional violation would suggest an absurd result — namely, that the policies of an elected official can be forever held hostage by the unguarded declarations of a candidate,” he wrote.
