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Jury Picked In X-Rated Movie Producer's Obscenity Trial

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By ELAINE SILVESTRINI | The Tampa Tribune

Published: May 27, 2008

TAMPA - Seven women and five men will decide whether movies distributed by a Hollywood movie producer who uses the name Max Hardcore are criminally obscene, that is, whether they violate the standards of the Tampa area community.

The filmmaker, whose real name is Paul F. Little, faces 10 federal counts of distributing obscene materials through the mail and over the Internet, including videos with titles such as "Golden Guzzlers 7, Euro Edition" and "Fists of Fury 4, Euro Edition." Little's company, MaxWorld Entertainment, is also on trial.

The case is a rare prosecution involving adult-entertainment materials that do not include children. Opening statements are set for today.

Potential jurors were told that if they were selected to judge the case, they would have a duty to view the videos, which include scenes of vomiting, urination and the use of a fist in a sexual act.

Several jury candidates said they would have trouble viewing such scenes, including a woman who said she has a weak stomach and has to leave the room when her niece vomits and a youth minister who said he struggled to overcome a pornography addiction and would have trouble if he had to watch those videos again.

Although prosecutors objected to removing some of the jurors who said they would have difficulty watching the videos, U.S. District Judge Susan Bucklew granted defense challenges to their service.

In exercising peremptory challenges, prosecutors removed some jurors involved in publishing who the prosecutors felt might have some "First Amendment issues." They included a magazine editor and a woman whose family owns an African-American newspaper.

Several jury candidates said they had viewed adult materials on the Internet, and at least one of those people was selected to serve on the panel that will decide the case.

Defense attorneys removed jury candidates who said they were active in their churches, and one man who said he occasionally listens to Rush Limbaugh.

Those selected to serve on the jury include two nurses, a pawn shop owner, a Hillsborough County schoolteacher, a retired loan coordinator and an executive assistant for a personal injury lawyer.

Before beginning jury selection, the sides argued over whether jurors will see all 8½ hours of video that are the subject of the indictment handed up last year against Little or whether prosecutors may present about 2½ hours of excerpts. The defense maintains the jury must see the entire production before judging whether it violates federal obscenity standards.

Bucklew said she must view the videos before deciding that issue.

In deciding the case, jurors will be guided by a test designed by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1972 in the case of Miller v. California. The test requires jurors to determine:

Whether "the average person, applying contemporary community standards" would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest;

Whether the work depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by the applicable state law;

Whether the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.

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