Let’s see if we got this straight. I guy pisses in public, he gets arrested by the cops. A guy pisses in public, and he has a video camera aimed at him, he’s making a political statement. No word yet from the jury chamber, but this was The Tampa Tribune’s report of what defense attorney Jeffrey Douglas said in summation today at the Max Hardcore trial.
TAMPA – Sexually explicit videos depicting urination and vomiting are political expression, according to an attorney for an adult movie producer who calls himself Max Hardcore.
The offensiveness of the videos “is the politically incorrect depiction and relationship with women,” said Jeffrey Douglas, representing the producer, whose real name is Paul Little. “That is the actual evidence of serious political value.”
Douglas was speaking today during his summation in Little’s trial on ten federal counts of distributing obscene materials through the mail and over the Internet. Jurors began deliberating shortly after 1 p.m.
Justice Department prosecutor Edward McAndrew urged jurors to convict. “Political speech is entitled to the highest protection under the First Amendment,” he said. “Obscenity is entitled to none. They are not the same thing.”
Jurors must determine whether the videos in question violate contemporary standards in the local community. Among the considerations in making that decision is whether the material contains serious artistic, scientific or political value.
The videos show scenes of women being made to drink urine and vomit and having objects, including fists and a medical instrument, inserted into their bodies.
“These videos are not just offensive, they’re an assault on your senses,” McAndrew said. “They bludgeon you to the point of exhaustion.” The videos, he said, depict “sexual conduct in a patently offensive manner.”
“Mr. Little degrades, mistreats, humiliates women for crass commercial gain and for his own pleasure,” McAndrew said, noting one scene in which he tells a woman, “You look better with puke on your face.”
“The only value in any of this is to Mr. Little, and it’s at your community’s expense and everyone else’s expense.”
But Douglas said the prosecutor was confusing fictional characters and play-acted scenes with real-life. No one, he said, was made to do anything. Actors were paid and consented to perform their parts.
Douglas said he found it “stunning” that the government was unable to distinguish between a character and a real person. Max Hardcore, Douglas said, is “barely a cartoon of a human being.”
Douglas compared Hardcore to the bigot Archie Bunker and Homer Simpson. The makers of The Simpsons, Douglas said, weren’t advocating the idea that it’s OK to fall asleep on the job at a nuclear power plant, as Homer Simpson does.
“Low-brow entertainment has serious value,” Douglas said. “This prosecution is wrong. This prosecution stinks.”