After Los Angeles U.S. District Judge Manuel Real was accused of improperly interfering in a bankruptcy case to protect a probationer he was supervising, Schroeder at first dismissed the complaint without appointing a special committee to investigate. A divided 9th Circuit Judicial Council eventually confirmed her decision not to discipline Real, but Alex Kozinski issued a bitter dissent.
Judges don’t like to reverse criminal convictions. They believe the defendants are probably guilty, and reversals lead to more work: retrials of the defendants (unless charges are dismissed
outright), more appeals by other convicted defendants who draw hope from the reversals, and (if
they’re consistent) more reversals in future cases. As Judge Kozinski of the United States Court
of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit pointed out, courts can avoid these dangers by requiring an “impossibly high” standard for materiality before a conviction will be reversed.
But Cathy Catterson, circuit executive for the 9th Circuit, told The Associated Press that the material on Kozinski's personal Web site was stored on a home server that was accessible to family members. Kozinski told the Times that he did not maintain the site on his work [office] computer.