Anyone who followed the Max Hardcore case knows that Judge Susan Bucklew ran that trial like a Mel Brooks scene out of Blazing Saddles. So it’s no surprise that Bucklew denies Max a new one in the light of the sham she presided over.

TAMPA – A federal judge this morning denied a new trial for a video producer convicted in June of distributing obscene materials.

Attorneys for Paul Little, also known as Max Hardcore, requested a new trial on several grounds, including the fact that one of the jurors was fired from her job the night before the verdict was returned.

U.S. District Judge Susan Bucklew ruled that the issues relating to the firing of the juror and other instances of alleged irregularities involving jurors did not affect the outcome of the case and did not detract from Little’s constitutional rights.

According to a defense court filing, the juror who was fired from her job had resisted convicting Little and his company, Max World Entertainment.

Before reaching their verdict, jurors sent a note to Bucklew stating they were deadlocked and that the deliberations were emotional.

Three jurors were holding out, according to the defense court filing. One of them was the woman who had sent a note to the judge earlier in the day asking to talk to Bucklew because the juror had been fired.

The judge didn’t meet with the juror until after the verdicts and didn’t tell attorneys in the case about the juror’s note, defense attorneys asserted in their court filing.

The defense maintained that the court’s failure to disclose the note to attorneys was improper and warrants a new trial.

The defense sought a new trial on several other grounds, including an assertion that a prosecutor made an improper comment to a juror during the trial. According to the defense filing, midway through the trial, a federal prosecutor “reported that he engaged in an inadvertent, but prejudicial dialogue with a juror in the elevator,” the defense motion states. “The attorney questioned whether the juror was going upstairs to ‘watch that porn,’ and the juror affirmed that he was.

“Although there was no apparent motive on the part of the attorney to taint the jury, the fact remains that the juror was chided by a government lawyer for being exposed to the allegedly obscene materials in this case,” the defense motion states.

But Bucklew said there was no evidence that the juror, who was not wearing his button identifying himself as a juror, was chided.

Little is scheduled to be sentenced Sept. 5.