Posted on 10/10/2005 1:05:39 PM PDT by Drew68
By Gretchen Gallen
Wednesday, October 5, 2005
ALTA DENA, Calif. – The offices of Max Hardcore’s Max World Entertainment were raided Wednesday under the authority of the Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section of the Justice Department. The FBI seized five video titles, Hardcore’s attorney Jeffrey Douglas told XBiz, including (ed. movie titles ommitted)
Additionally, the FBI seized all servers belonging to Hardcore with the purpose of copying and returning them, Douglas said. It is not yet known what other office items have been taken as the investigation is ongoing.
By Thursday afternoon, Hardcore's servers had been returned and the website was active.
Hardcore was not present at the time of the raid, and according to Douglas, is presently attending a trade show in Barcelona, Spain.
Douglas said this is the first federal obscenity investigation involving Hardcore and is in any way related to 2257 record-keeping enforcement.
“Once again the government is wasting tax dollars and otherwise invaluable law enforcement resources to try to force a minority view of morality on all of America,” Hardcore said in a statement. “Five of my movies have been targeted by the federal ‘prude’ patrol. There is no indication of any crime to be alleged except obscenity. If indicted, I will fight to protect my liberty as well as the liberty of consenting adults to watch other adults engage in lawful, consensual, pleasurable sexual action. Shame on the Department of Justice. I am proud of my movies and of those who sell them.”
In 2001, Hardcore was prosecuted by the city of Los Angeles for obscenity, which was not resolved until 2004 with a company plea to a public nuisance.
Born Paul Little in 1956, Hardcore’s films have long been considered some of the most controversial in the industry.
One would think. However, the way the courts have begun to interpret the law, mens rea is unconstitutionally not required. Regardless of the due dilligence that may have been exercised, one can and will be convicted if a jury can be convinced that minors were filmed in a sexual context. Parents have been convicted for baby pictures; the children themselves have been convicted for autophotography.
Same problem exists when environmental laws are violated: ignorance and/or good faith errors are not permitted as defenses. In other words, criminal law has begun to be enforced as though it was merely administrative regulations (where mens rea is not required, but also where a civil fine is supposed to be the maximum penalty.)
The Framers didn't put an explicit requirement for mens rea into the Constitution, for two reasons. One is that it was so fundamental to Anglo-Saxon legal principles, they simply assumed it as a bedrock part of common law. But more importantly, they thought they had written a Constitution that severely restricted the authority of the Federal government, and that it was only authorized to criminalize a few things. Thomas Jefferson enumerated them in the Kentucky Resolutions:
... the Constitution of the United States, having delegated to Congress a power to punish treason, counterfeiting the securities and current coin of the United States, piracies, and felonies committed on the high seas, and offenses against the law of nations, and no other crimes whatsoever; and it being true as a general principle, and one of the amendments to the Constitution having also declared, that "the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people," therefore the act of Congress, passed on the 14th day of July, 1798, and intituled "An Act in addition to the act intituled An Act for the punishment of certain crimes against the United States," as also the act passed by them on the -- day of June, 1798, intituled "An Act to punish frauds committed on the bank of the United States," (and all their other acts which assume to create, define, or punish crimes, other than those so enumerated in the Constitution,) are altogether void, and of no force; and that the power to create, define, and punish such other crimes is reserved, and, of right, appertains solely and exclusively to the respective States, each within its own territory.
I would have posted the same thoughts, almost verbatim.
Well stated.
Actually, it's exactly the opposite - SCOTUS ruled that such a thing was not a crime.
Nothing - therefore all porn is perfectly legal. Is that the answer you want?
Thanks. I knew it came up. I couldn't recall the details. Was it a diary or something? Anyway, I just think it's bizarre to start criminalizing fantasy and fiction, no matter how twisted you or I might think it is. Don't you? Isn't this a bit much? You hate to have to defend this sort of stuff, but there has to be a line somewhere, no?
He would be hung tomorrow in my world.
It is. Personally, if the actress is 18 or older, she is allowed to act in an X-rated film. Period. That's the law. When we start getting into the "fictional representation of children" it becomes subjective. What exactly constitutes dressing like or looking like or "fictionally representing" a child?
However, in Max's films, no effort is spared to make his actresses appear as child-like as possible.
What I want is irrelevent. But that is the correct answer. Unless some other crime has been comitted, the FBI had no legal authority to raid this guys business.
"...the last time I checked the First Amendment still begins "Congress shall make no law.."
And they should have stopped at that.
I googled and took a sneak peek - here it is summed up:
Urination
Defecation
Fisting
Choking
Rough anal sex
Gagging
All performed on teeny-bopping, middle-school looking girls.
This isn't porn, this is legalized snuff child pornography masquerading as "art."
He would be a world of hurt if it was proven that any of the models or porn stars on any of his films or website where underage.
The porn industry is very maticulous about this, as they are with aids and STD's tests these days.
While Max's films are nasty, the women in these films are consenting adults and paid for their performances.
Most pron stars are part time prostitutes as well.
While I easily choose not to view Max's stuff because it does nothing for me, I don't like the government getting involved in this, unless, Max did have non-adults involved in his material.
I suppose it's only a matter of time before 3D animation gets so good, you can see a video of any sick thing you can imagine. What to do then. How about a chillingly lifelike digital cartoon of child rape? It will happen. What then? Just a weird, weird area to get into.
I used to draw cartoons. One time I drew a pretty raunchy one that I thought was funny. It had a woman--let me try to be careful here--receiving a male sheep, who might have been acting like a dog, if you get my meaning. The caption read "Mary had a little lamb." Should I have gotten busted for beastiality?
This is a public health issue. Urinating on other people is against the law. Anal sex with multiple partners lead to AIDS. If the feds don't get Max Hardcore first, then communicable diseases surely will. I'm hoping on the latter.
As is often said, maintaining free speech requires defending speech with which you object.
Poor choice of words.
I remember reading about some jurisdiction that went after the local video rental place for violating "community standards" for obscenity. The store owner simply said that he'd offer into evidence the names of all his customers who rented porn from him to show that a large segment of the community were, in fact, consumers of his offerings. The case was hastily dropped.
But what to do when they aren't really children, and they aren't really dying? What to do when it's all fictional? And how about when it becomes all digitized--no real people involved? I know this stuff is plainly what it is, but I still don't like the fed gubmint deciding what i can see, read, hear, think.
So all he needs is a good lawyer to point this out to prosecutors and it's a walk.
Being that no children are involved, it is not child porn.
Don't think so. Got a citation?
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