TAMPA, FL — The kinds of “extreme” sexual acts depicted in Max Hardcore’s productions amount to political expression, defense attorney Jeffrey Douglas told the jury Wednesday during his summation in Hardcore’s obscenity trial.The videos comprise “the politically incorrect depiction [of a] relationship with women,” he said. “That is the actual evidence of serious political value.”
Federal prosecutor Edward McAndrew begged to differ.
“Political speech is entitled to the highest protection under the First Amendment,” he told the jury. “Obscenity is entitled to none. They are not the same thing.”
Hardcore, whose real name is Paul Little, stands accused of 10 federal counts of distributing obscenity via the mail and the internet. In order to convict under the three-pronged “Miller Test” established by the Supreme Court in 1973, the jury must find Hardcore’s work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value and appeals to prurient interest while depicting sexual conduct in “patently offensive way.”
The Hardcore videos under consideration include depictions of women drinking urine and vomit and having a variety of foreign objects inserted into their bodies.
“These videos are not just offensive; they’re an assault on your senses,” McAndrew told the jury. “They bludgeon you to the point of exhaustion. Mr. Little degrades, mistreats, humiliates women for crass commercial gain and for his own pleasure.”
Douglas, on the other hand, said no one was forced to perform in Hardcore’s videos, all of which embody fantasies acted out by consenting adults who were paid to perform roles.
He also called Max Hardcore “barely a cartoon of a human being.”
“Low-brow entertainment has serious value,” he told the jury. “This prosecution is wrong. This prosecution stinks.”
The jury began deliberating shortly after 1:00 pm ET Wednesday.
