WASHINGTON – A former federal courts chief is demanding the impeachment or resignation of a prominent California-based appellate judge who is already facing scrutiny over raunchy Internet imagery.
In a heated, 38-page complaint that resurrects an old feud, the former courts administrator alleges that 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Chief Judge Alex Kozinski committed "felonies and other crimes" by temporarily turning off the courts' Internet security system in May 2001.
"He robbed judges of both their Internet privacy and security … solely to ensure that he and some judges and some court staff could continue to download pornography illegally in their chambers while not being detected," declared Leonidas Ralph Mecham, former chief of the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts.
Kozinski's attorney, Mark Holscher, on Monday dismissed the new complaint as a rehash.
Mecham filed his complaint with the Philadelphia-based 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which is already examining Kozinski's apparent affiliation with an Internet site loaded with explicit, bizarre and humorous images.
"The matter was properly concluded seven years ago, there was no finding of judicial misconduct," Judge Thomas Hogan, chairman of the executive committee of the Judicial Conference of the United States, stated in February, following an earlier Mecham missive.
Call Michael Doyle, Bee Washington Bureau, (202) 383-0006.
