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All Forums > Star Crossed > Star Crossed Forum Page 896 > Max Hardcore Verdict: Hung Jury!

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Pontus Maximus Senior Member Man of Steel, meet your match. 1346 Posts 9/02	Posted - Oct 10 2002 : 11:09PM The following was reported at www.generossextreme.com: Hung Jury in Max Case Click to expand In sports, a tie is like kissing your sister. In an obscenity trial, a tie is like being kissed by a stripper. With a 6-6 score with six women on the jury, Max Hardcore walked out of an LA courtroom victorious in his misdemeanor obscenity trial when a jury failed to convict him after 10 hours of deliberation. Hardcore was quoted as saying that he was pleased with the outcome although he would have liked an acquittal. Hardcore noted that the state of California with all of its resources was unable to gain a verdict. Any jubilation will be short-lived, however, because Hardcore's attorney Jeffrey Douglas noted that there's a possibility of a re-trial which under the circumstances should benefit Hardcore since the prosecution used up all of its ammunition and arguments. Douglas said he was optimistic about Hardcore's chances in a rematch and that the retrial would probably go again in front of Judge Michael Kellogg. The city can elect not to re-try Hardcore but must makes its intentions clear by October 30 when a new pre-trial hearing is scheduled. Click to expand So it might not be over yet for porn's baddest bad boy. Pontus [Link]
BIGmike B-I-G-m-i-k-e 2335 Posts 3/01	Posted - Oct 10 2002 : 11:14PM Well, I don't think congratulations are in place, at least from me, but I will say he is a lucky fucker... and leave it at that. ---Let freedom ring with the shotgun blast! --- [Link]
HoustonDon Member Houston 561 Posts 11/99	Posted - Oct 11 2002 : 1:07AM I think the analogy is flawed. Unless his lawyers work for free and his time has no value, a hung jury means he gets to start from scratch. California may decide on a new approach to prosecuting him that is more successful as well. So all the bluff and bluster about "winning" seems a bit premature. Bleeding a defendant dry repeatedly is a long standing tactic of District Attorney's with an axe to grind. Of course he might also lose the next round which would cost money and may land him in jail to be the sex toy of all the inmates too... [Link]
Pontus Maximus Senior Member Man of Steel, meet your match. 1346 Posts 9/02	Posted - Oct 11 2002 : 1:30AM Asmodeus posted the following in another thread on Oct 11, 2002: 01:15:32 AM: Max Jury Hung! — Hardcore Claims Victory LOS ANGELES — Max Hardcore was jubilant. "We won! We smashed 'em," the exhausted producer told AVN.com. After nearly 10 hours of deliberation, the jury of 12 Los Angeles residents split 6-6 and failed to reach a verdict in the trial of adult video producer Max Hardcore on the one remaining charge against him — Distribution Of Obscenity, Sec. 311.2(a) of the California Penal Code. "While it would have been nice to get a unanimous jury in favor of acquittal," Hardcore noted, "I'm especially pleased that while the prosecutor and the might of the state of California and their unlimited resources were unable to defeat, in open court, a small producer like myself with very limited resources, who makes some very popular product." It's unclear how long this victory may last, however. "The case has been returned to Div. 40 for retrial," Hardcore's attorney Jeffrey Douglas told AVN.com. "From what the judge said on the bench when we were polling the jury, I thought for sure we had won, but at the very last second, he sent us back, so it looks like we're going to have to go through this exercise again." "Fortunately," Hardcore opined, "we had enough intelligent jurors on the case who felt that what we were doing was ultimately a matter of free speech, and that it was made by adults for adults and that people should have the ability to make their own decisions and watch it if they like and not watch it if they don't like it." According to Douglas, typically, a retrial is better for the prosecution because the defense has tipped its hand, and the prosecution can use that information to bolster its own case. "That's not the case here at all," Douglas countered. "We only called one witness, and it was essentially for the technical grounds of laying the foundation for the [comparable] tapes. We've given them nothing, and they've given us their absolute 100 percent best shot. It all turns on the film, and the film was unable to persuade more than six women, one of whom had never seen porn before, and I feel very optimistic about a retrial if a retrial happens. Secondly, this is a body-blow to the Organized Crime Vice Division Pornography Unit and the prosecutors." Douglas noted that the city can elected not to prosecute Hardcore further, but that if it decides to go back to court, Assistant City Attorney Michele Anderson would be required to seek a reallocation of resources (translation: "more money and officers' time") in order to bring everyone back. Also, that trial will in all likelihood again be in front of Judge Michael Kellogg. "I hope he retries the case," Douglas said. "We don't know, but there are a lot of factors that would lean toward that. Most judges don't like to do a retrial of someone else's trial, and there's going to be tons of argument that the rulings that the judge made in this case have to be binding in a subsequent case, so there will be constant referrals back to the transcript to see whether or not a particular ruling is binding." Douglas included the admissibility of the comparable tapes as something that he believes will carry over to the new trial. The city will be forced to lay its cards on the table on that score by October 30, which is the date set for the pre-trial hearing which must precede the second trial, and the city will have until November 12 to actually bring Hardcore back into court if it intends to do so. "So at the end of this 18-month odyssey I've been on in defense of adult entertainment — because this trial could have been against anyone," Hardcore reflected. "The prosecutor has been repudiated in a hammershot. In the interests of justice, in the interests of fiscal responsibility, in the interest of allotting their resources where they can do the most good and where they can have the greatest effect, what's called for here is a total reassessment of their priorities, because obviously, after 18 months and thousands of dollars spent and hundreds of hours of preparation time on this case, which should never have gone in front of a jury, the best that they could come up with was a hung jury,. The prosecutor's office really should re-evaluate where they're putting their efforts." "If I go back again," he added, "I'm going to get the same results, and the only difference is, I'm going to have spent another several thousand dollars to get to that point, so while we didn't have complete victory, we certainly did not have defeat. Max Hardcore as whipped the state of California and defeated the forces of censorship, and you can quote me on that." Added Douglas, "We're all feeling great about this, and the other side isn't." Reported by Mark Kernes Courtesy of AVN Click to expand Pontus Edited by - Pontus Maximus on 10/11/2002 1:31:00 AM [Link]
Hardz Member Hell on Earth 877 Posts 6/01	Posted - Oct 12 2002 : 1:08AM Sometimes I'm outraged by peoples snide and off the cuff remarks about Max Hardcore (the above posts by HustonDon and Bigmike are good examples). The fact that this verdict was reached at all is an amazing result by the defence because the team had to convince 12 people that the porn produced by Max is no more obscene or outrageous than that produced by other companies. If porn fans indirectly attack someone like Max for what he does, how the hell the defence managed to convince half the jury that this type of product is not obscene is remarkable. How would Bigmike feel if Joey Silvera was on trial for producing those she-male tapes or Brandon Irons for the Slap Happy tapes ? Consensual acts performed by consensual adults are not obscene and Max is well within his first Ammendment rights to make his type of porn. This fight is about freedom of speech and censorship, and if Max does lose the next round (and as HustonDon put it "land him in jail to be the sex toy of all the inmates " ) God help us all. Who will be next to share his cell ? IT COULD BE YOU ! [Link]

HoustonDon Member Houston 561 Posts 11/99	Posted - Oct 12 2002 : 9:33AM Hardz, sorry that you took my message the wrong way but you missed the main point: THERE WAS NO VERDICT REACHED! By definition, a hung jury means that a verdict COULDN'T be reached which is considered a far WORSE outcome than either not guilty or even guilty. Why? Well think about it for a second if you would. If a verdict of not guilty was reached, it would make it more difficult for the same district attorney, as well as others in the area, to continue to use scare tactics on the industry. If a guilty verdict was reached, the case could be appealed to a higher court which might be the only way a newer, more logical legal standard could be set. This case had no verdict reached which, as I stated before, allows the state to keep at him. No matter how much you may like the guy's work, or what he is fighting for, the chest_beating going on is foolish on his part and anyone else who thinks a hung jury equates to a win. I made no reference to what he makes-there is a market for such stuff, no matter how lame I may think it is-and the content was not at issue in my posting. If anything, a lot of people probably would see some poetic justice in Max ending up as a sex toy for inmates, given the nature of his abusive movies, but I was not one of the ones saying that. For the record, I haven't seen the movie in question so I'm not about to act amazed that some of the jurors had a reasonable doubt in the case. I have seen enough of his stuff to know that he has plenty of other titles ripe for prosecution in many areas and it's cases like these that tend to make enough of a stir to gain the interest of some DA in middle America. Since one prosecution has him begging for handouts on his website, how do you think he'd fare with 10 prosecutions-all in different areas that are FAR more conservative than the VERY Liberal California-going on at the same time? Don't get me wrong, I'm a free speech advocate. My personal tastes are not the issue here, nor should yours be. The problem I have with his false bravado, and that of sycophants who blindly follow him, is that by claiming a victory where he had to spend tens of thousands of dollars (if not more) in order to obtain what amounts to a legal draw, he sets the stage for an open season on porn. Look, don't you think the chilling effect of such prosecutions has had an impact? Do you think the government should spend thousands of dollars bugging marginal hacks in the porn industry-just to make a point (or win an election)? Look what happened to Adam (Seymore Butts) Glassner earlier this year. In any case, if Max was so sure that what he makes is not obscene, and that whatever consenting adults do is not obscene, he'd have opted for a judge trial rather than jury. No matter what you think, others may think differently about what constitutes "obscene" and the courts can't seem to agree at this point in time. In any case, feel free to spell my handle correctly in the future. TIA Hardz wrote: Sometimes I'm outraged by peoples snide and off the cuff remarks about Max Hardcore (the above posts by HustonDon and Bigmike are good examples). The fact that this verdict was reached at all is an amazing result by the defence because the team had to convince 12 people that the porn produced by Max is no more obscene or outrageous than that produced by other companies. If porn fans indirectly attack someone like Max for what he does, how the hell the defence managed to convince half the jury that this type of product is not obscene is remarkable. How would Bigmike feel if Joey Silvera was on trial for producing those she-male tapes or Brandon Irons for the Slap Happy tapes ? Consensual acts performed by consensual adults are not obscene and Max is well within his first Ammendment rights to make his type of porn. This fight is about freedom of speech and censorship, and if Max does lose the next round (and as HustonDon put it "land him in jail to be the sex toy of all the inmates " ) God help us all. Who will be next to share his cell ? IT COULD BE YOU ! Click to expand [Link]
BIGmike B-I-G-m-i-k-e 2335 Posts 3/01	Posted - Oct 12 2002 : 1:41PM First let me say that Max Hardcore is Max Hardcore. A character who likes to sodomize very young looking girls. Fine... But the stuff that I've seen of his, and yes I have seen his stuff, was so abusive that those were the first and only Adult, XXX, DVDs that I ever demanded my money back on. I do not like him, that is evident by any of the numerous posts I've made about him. But I also know that there are fans of his out there who probably think I'm an asshole... Fine. I just don't see the appeal of being so abusive to a willing and able body. I don't like what he does. I will never buy a product with him in it, on it, endorsed by him, and so on. I do not care if he has to spend whatever money he has to defend what he does and I will not support him or anything he does. It's just a damn shame that he wasn't found guilty or innocent. A hung jury means that no conclusion/outcome could be reached. Nothing more. I just hope when, or if, the DA goes back after him, that he doesn't bring the whole industry down. [Link]
reading&watching Member Reading, England 25 Posts 9/02	Posted - Oct 21 2002 : 8:01AM BIGmike wrote: But the stuff that I've seen of his, and yes I have seen his stuff, was so abusive that those were the first and only Adult, XXX, DVDs that I ever demanded my money back on. Click to expand Boy, have you led a sheltered life [Link]
Bjones Member Adam & Eve Internet Commerce Group 30 Posts 7/02	Posted - Oct 22 2002 : 10:33AM One other thing to keep in mind with all of us being under the gun of prosecution... This took place in California, the only state where filming adult material has been determined to be legal by the courts. There are 49 other states. If a hung jury can take place in a liberal state such as California, what do you suppose will happen in states such as Arkansas, Mississippi, and Kansas? The D.A. and/or Max's attorney only managed to convince 50% of the people in their favor in L.A. That task may be a bit harder with a mid-western house wife in the jury. Finally, there is a federal group under John Ashcroft. While some may consider it a victory for Max, others may not. All I can say at this point is that it is a step, in which direction, only time will tell. Brian Jones Adam & Eve Internet Commerce Group www.adameve.com [Link]
HoustonDon Member Houston 561 Posts 11/99	Posted - Oct 23 2002 : 11:19AM Brian's right and considering the past experiences the folks at Adam & Eve have had in the past with such prosecutions, I'll defer to their expertise. IIRC, there was a book written by one of their big wigs detailing the entire thing. If I can find a copy locally, I'll submit a mini-review from my "centrist/conservative" viewpoint. [Link]
DenverDon Benevolent Firmly Embedded in Depravity 5914 Posts 7/02	Posted - Oct 23 2002 : 11:34AM HoustonDon, Over in the Talk area here at ADT, there already is an article and book review on the Obscenity Trials and Adam & Eve. Here is the link to that area. DenverDon [Link]
lindi Senior Member 12345 3205 Posts 9/02	Posted - Oct 23 2002 : 1:10PM DenverDon - great link! And an even better link from there to the RAME faq on legal issues. [Link]

All Forums > Star Crossed > Star Crossed Forum Page 896Max Hardcore Verdict: Hung Jury!

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