Judge e-mailed vulgar jokes to gag list

LOS ANGELES, Dec. 8 (UPI) -- A federal judge in California says he has stopped sending tasteless jokes to a wide range of people in an e-mail group he called the Easy Rider Gag List.

Alex Kozinski, of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, said his gag list was a way to keep in touch with friends, law clerks, reporters and other judges, the Los Angeles Times reported Monday.

"I decided to find other ways to stay in touch, so as not to distract from the court I love," Kozinski said in a statement after the Times published a story about sexually explicit material Kozinski kept on a publicly accessible Web site.

The jokes included "a lot of vulgar jokes, very dirty jokes. I was astonished that a judge was doing this," said Michael Kinsley, a columnist at Time magazine, who was on Kozinski's gag list.

Kozinski's lawyer, Mark Holscher, called the jokes on the gag list "irrelevant" to Kozinski's ability to fairly decide cases, the Times reported.