Alex Kozinski is a Romanian-American jurist and lawyer who was a judge on the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit from 1985 to 2017.
37 Facts About Alex Kozinski
2.
Alex Kozinski was a prominent and influential judge, and many of his law clerks went on to clerk for US Supreme Court justices.
3.
Alex Kozinski was born in July 1950 to a Romanian Jewish family in Bucharest, under the rule of the Socialist Republic of Romania.
4.
In 1958, Alex Kozinski's parents applied to the Romanian government for permission to emigrate from the country.
5.
Alex Kozinski, who had grown up as a committed communist in Bucharest, became what he described as "an instant capitalist" when he took his first trip outside of the Iron Curtain, to Vienna, where he partook of such luxuries as chewing gum and bananas.
6.
Alex Kozinski's family immigrated to the United States in 1962 and settled in the Los Feliz neighborhood of Los Angeles, where his father ran a small grocery store.
7.
Alex Kozinski then attended the UCLA School of Law, where he was a managing editor of the UCLA Law Review.
8.
Alex Kozinski graduated in 1975 with a Juris Doctor ranked first in his class.
9.
Alex Kozinski was a Deputy Legal Counsel of the Office of the President-Elect in Washington, DC and an Assistant Counsel for the Office of Counsel to the President in Washington, DC.
10.
Alex Kozinski was a Special Counsel for the Merit Systems Protection Board in Washington, DC.
11.
Alex Kozinski served as a trial judge of the United States Court of Claims in 1982, serving as Chief of Trial Division that year.
12.
Alex Kozinski was nominated by President Ronald Reagan on August 10,1982, to the United States Claims Court, to a new seat authorized by 96 Stat.
13.
Alex Kozinski was confirmed by the United States Senate on August 20,1982, and received commission on October 1,1982.
14.
Alex Kozinski served as Chief Judge from 1982 to 1985.
15.
Alex Kozinski's service terminated on February 9,1985, due to resignation.
16.
Alex Kozinski was nominated by President Ronald Reagan on June 5,1985, to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, to a new seat created by 98 Stat.
17.
Alex Kozinski served as Chief Judge of the circuit from December 1,2007, to December 1,2014.
18.
Alex Kozinski appointed a five-judge panel to review the matter in which he was the chair.
19.
Alex Kozinski was particularly successful placing his clerks with Justice Anthony Kennedy, for whom he had himself clerked.
20.
Alex Kozinski believed that only invited friends and family were able to view the image directory.
21.
Alex Kozinski advocated the use of the guillotine or firing squad and said that for any country that wants to take human life, citizens should be prepared to watch the proceedings.
22.
Alex Kozinski interacted with, and allegedly harassed and assaulted, lawyers at different stages of their careers.
23.
Alex Kozinski interacted with clerks for other judges when they traveled to other courthouses for oral arguments.
24.
Alex Kozinski had an innate sense of when he'd gone too far.
25.
On December 8,2017, Alex Kozinski was accused of misconduct by six women including former law clerks, legal externs, and junior staffers.
26.
Four of the women say Alex Kozinski touched or kissed them without permission.
27.
On December 18,2017, Alex Kozinski announced his immediate retirement.
28.
Alex Kozinski argued that the Kozinski family's right to privacy was violated when the disgruntled litigant exposed the private files, which were not intended for public viewing.
29.
Alex Kozinski asked Chief Justice John Roberts to assign the inquiry to a panel of judges outside the Ninth Circuit's jurisdiction.
30.
Alex Kozinski's wife wrote a defense characterizing those of his posts which were alleged to be pornographic, to rather be humorous.
31.
Alex Kozinski had previously been involved in a dispute over government monitoring of federal court employees' computers.
32.
In 2001, Alex Kozinski, who possesses sophisticated computer skills, personally disabled software which blocked federal court computers in three appellate circuits from receiving pornography.
33.
On June 15,2008, it was reported that Alex Kozinski had recused himself from the case.
34.
In February 2013, Alex Kozinski wrote an opinion reversing a district court ruling that had denied Japanese whalers Institute of Cetacean Research a preliminary injunction against the US-based anti-whaling group Sea Shepherd Conservation Society.
35.
Alex Kozinski found that the militant conservationist group were "pirates," reversed the denial of injunction by the district court, and affirmed its own provisional injunction against Sea Shepherd.
36.
In May 2017, Alex Kozinski wrote for the narrowly divided en banc circuit when it found that the United States District Court for the Southern District of California's policy of indiscriminately shackling criminal defendants in all pretrial hearings violated the Constitution's Due Process Clause.
37.
On December 9,2019, Alex Kozinski argued before the 9th Circuit for the first time since his resignation due to the scandal.