Ipubl4her Larry Flynt Has A

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r lA Sunday, March 25,19,"9 THE WASHINGTON POST IPubl4her Larry Flynt Has a By Art Harris OM works as Hustler, "Tbe Joys of in mistrial in nearby Lawrenceville, Wardatirtatt Past &IV Writer 'Lesbian Sex," Erica Jong's novel, Ga. He faces up to 11 years in prison ATLANTA, March ZS—Struggling "Fear of Flying," "The Happy and •a 655,000 fine if found guilty against prosecutors armed with a Hooker," and other sex manuals and on the 11 misdemeanor obscenity . sightly -written obscenity law and a novels that explicitly depict various charges. kinds of sexual behavior. .judge who has so far denied every de- Dressed in dark three-piece suits, fense attempt to show that Hustler • Fulton County residents spend a Flynt, 36, who has parlayed his own magazine is generally accepted by At- small fortune on explicit sexual litera- brand of raunch and scatological hu- ▪ lanta residents, attorneys for pub- ture. mor into a magazine with a circula- 'lisber Lairy Flynt have had a bad Flynt publications and others like tion of 3 million--_,ust behind Playboy "week in court. them enjoyed huge circulations in At- and Penthouse—si:s in court with lit- , "We're still trying, heads bloodied, lanta during the summer and fall of tle expression, doing an occasional `Ind unbowed," said Flynt's attorney, 1977. when Flynt rented a bookstore pushupiri his wheelchair. Herald Price Fahringer, of Buffalo. on Peachtree Street, sold autographed In court, his wife, Althea Leasure, ''This is unprecedented. We've never copies of Hustler and dared Atlanta's who runs the magazine's day-to-day had a case where all evidence on com- anti-smut crusader, solicitor (county operations, sits with Flynt's mother munity standards was excluded." prosecutor) Hinson McCauliffe, to ar- and stepfather. , First, Fulton County State Judge rest him, which McCaluiffe did. At a Similar trial in Cincinnati, Nick G. Lambros dented the Flynt The obscenity trial here is as much where Flynt was sentenced to 7 to 25 public opinion poll that purported to a clash of conflicting ambitions be- years in prison and a $10,000 fine on show that 84 percent of Fulton Coun- tween a publisher and a prosecutor, an organized crime charge and a $1,- ty's 600,000 residents felt they had the who once told a staff Christmas party 000 fine for obscenity, jurors were "right to read and obtain any materi- that "we're the front-line defense shown a life-size centerfold of Flynt's als depicting nudity and sex" that against the decay in our society," as it wife, with full frontal nudity. That they wanted. is a battle over First Amendment case is under appeal. Then, Friday, he upheld prosecution rights. In Atlanta, the jury has been lim- objections and ruled out defense testi- Now Flynt Is paralyzed In the legs ited to glimpses of an occasional silk ▪' Inony to show: and confined to a wheelchair since be- vest with a plunging neckline, along • Atlanta public libraries and com- ing shot during the recess last year of with the seven copies of Hustler, mercial bookstores contain such ex- a similar pornography case that ended three copies of Chic, another Flynt Tough Week in Atlanta Court magazine and Flynt's anthology, %The Lambrose denied Fahringer's at- Under cross examination, Cranford Best of Hustler No. 2," which make up tempts to introduce such magazines as said a monthly Hustler "Award," lam-' the state's exhibits in the 11 counts Knave, Gallery, Oui and Penthouse as pooning such public figures as the evidence of community standards. prosecutor who brought Flynt to trial, against the publisher. Had jurors been allowed to read was prurient because it attacked ".peo- Every morning before 9, a black "comparable publications," which sold pie who disagree with Mr. Flynt" on Lincoln Continental, flanked by a 1.3 million issues in Fulton County be- sexual matters. green station wagon with Flynt's per- tween June 1977 and January 1978, Prosecutor McCauliffe has also sonal security agent hanging out the the period covered by the indictments charged Hugh Hefner of Palyboy, Oui back, backs up on the curb outside the against Flynt, they would say, ."What publisher Daniel Filipacehi and Pent- courthouse, where Flynt is helped are we getting all excited about Hus- house publisher Bob Guccione in sep- into his wheelchair, surrounded by tler for? This is the. current commu- arate obscenity cases. shotgun-toting deputies and personal nity standard," Fahringer said. In 1973 the U.S. Supreme Court al- security guards, and whiskki into tered the definition of obscenity, rul- court. Emory University sociology Profes- sor Fred Crawford, a former educa- ing that local Judges were bound nei- Spectators are frisked and checked tion adviser to President Carter when ther by a "national standard" nor the with an electronic metal detectoi. he was governor, testified for the need to prove books and movies "ut- The jury, which is expected to begin prosecution that Hustler appealed to terly without redeeming social value." deliberations early next week, must "prurient interest" in matters of sex Using this standard, McCaullffe has decide whether Hustler and Chic ap- and excrement. shut down such films as "Last Tango peal primarily to a "morbid or shame- Crawford said, "Here Is a person of in Pris" and the musical review "Oh ful" Interest in sex. Calcutta." national reputation who holds to the So far the defense in the Flynt trial Under Georgia law, the jurors must position that sex is the dominant as- consider current community stand- has called such witnesses as Kinsey pect of life. To most of us sex is beau- Report co-author Dr. Wardell ards. Lawyer Fahringer told Judge tiful ... sex is a part of life. But the Pom- Lambrose Friday that he was being eroy and HeeHaw television star John predominant emphasis (of his maga- Henry Faulk, a Texas humorist who barred from presenting any evidence zines) is on sex ...The Idea of sex be- testified that Hustler has "literary of such standards. As a result, he said, ing the whole of life becomes prurient value to the 15 people who snap it up Flynt's publications could wind up be- and alters our interest as human be- every month" in Madisonville, Tex., ing judged "in a vacuum." ings." his hometown.