Chief Judge Kozinski Speaks on the Immigrant Experience and Judging at Yale Law FedSoc Event

David Lat writes at Above the Law:

Conservative and libertarian judges on the Ninth Circuit — yes, they exist — have been showing the East Coast a lot of love lately. Last month, my former boss, Judge Diarmuid O’Scannlain, delivered the Joseph Story Distinguished Lecture at the Heritage Foundation (an excellent speech that you can watch here). Later this week, Judge O’Scannlain and one of his colleagues, Judge Carlos Bea, will make appearances at the Federalist Society’s National Lawyers Convention.

And yesterday, the ringmaster of the Ninth Circuit himself, Chief Judge Alex Kozinski, delivered a talk at Yale Law School entitled “The Immigrant Experience and Judging.” He spoke to a packed house in YLS’s largest classroom.

Here are five highlights from his remarks….

The event featured Judge Kozinski in conversation with Charlie Dameron, vice president for events of the Yale Federalist Society, which sponsored the event. Dameron asked smart and thoughtful questions, but he really didn’t need to do much; as we’ve seen from the judge’s prior appearances at YLS, he’s voluble, insightful, and funny.

Judge Kozinski, who came to the United States from Romania at age 12, began by describing his childhood in that country. The state exercised great control people’s lives, one could not speak freely, and consumer goods of decent quality were in short supply. Having grown up in that environment, he does not take the United States for granted:

“Sometimes people ask me: Why did you come to America? This is a question that only an American would ask. You went to America because you could!”

He recalled how his father once brought home a banana. It was not very yellow, mostly black, but it still tasted delicious. After young Kozinski and his parents left Romania, they stopped in Vienna, where he discovered bubble gum, chocolate, and a market where you could buy ripe bananas in copious quantities. It had an immediate and profound effect on him:

“I became a capitalist overnight!” . . .