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Judge Alex
Kozinski
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QUOTE 1: "Immanuel Kant said it best. He said a society
that is not willing to demand a life of somebody who has taken somebody else's
life is simply immoral. So the question really... when the system works and
when you manage to identify somebody who has done such heinous evil, do we as a
society have a right to take his life? I think the answer's plainly yes. And I
would go with Kant and I would say it is immoral for us not to." (November 7, 2007 Hoover Institution Interview)
QUOTE 2: "Most of us continue to believe that those
who show utter contempt for human life by committing remorseless, premeditated
murder justly forfeit the right to their own life."
QUOTE 3: Brutal facts have immense power; they etched
deep marks in my psyche. Those who commit such atrocities, I concluded, forfeit
their own right to live. We tarnish their memory of the dead and heed needless
misery on their surviving families by letting the perpetrators live. [Tinkering with death February 10, 1997]
QUOTE 4: It's late Saturday night. Another execution is
scheduled for next week, and the machinery of death is humming through my fax.
And, despite the qualms, despite the queasiness I still feel every time an
execution is carried out in my jurisdiction, I tinker away. I do it because I
have taken an oath. But there's more. I do it because I believe that society is
entitled to take the life of those who have shown utter contempt for the lives
of others. And because I hear the tortured voices of the victims crying out to
me for vindication. [Tinkering with death February 10, 1997]
AUTHOR: Alex Kozinski (born July 23, 1950) is Chief Judge of the United States
Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, an essayist, and a judicial
commentator. Kozinski was born in Bucharest, Romania. In 1962, when he was 12,
his parents, both Holocaust survivors, brought him to the United States. The
family settled in Los Feliz, Los Angeles, California, where his father, Moses,
ran a small grocery store. Kozinski graduated from the University of
California, Los Angeles, receiving an A.B. degree in 1972, and from the UCLA
School of Law, receiving a J.D. degree in 1975. Kozinski clerked for future
Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy on the Ninth Circuit from 1975 to 1976,
and then for Chief Justice Warren Burger from 1976 to 1977. From June 5, 1981
to August 1982, Kozinski served as the first U.S. Special Counsel appointed by
President Ronald Reagan. In 1982, Kozinski was appointed chief judge at the
newly formed United States Court of Federal Claims. In 1985, at the age of 35,
Kozinski was appointed to a new seat at the U. S. Court of Appeals for the
Ninth Circuit by President Ronald Reagan, making him the youngest federal appeals
court judge. Defending the court against criticism because of a controversial
decision, Kozinski went on record emphasizing judicial independence: "It
seems to me that this is what makes this country truly great—that we can have a
judiciary where the person who appoints you doesn't own you." He also took
a stand against the charge that the Ninth Circuit is overly liberal, which led
some to call it "The Notorious Ninth": "I can say with some
confidence that cries that the Ninth Circuit is so liberal are just simply
misplaced." On November 30, 2007, Kozinski was appointed the tenth chief
judge of the Ninth Circuit.
PLEASE GO TO THIS BLOG POST TO SEE
JUDGE ALEX KOZINSKI IN A DEATH PENALTY DEBATE.
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