Judge in the Martha's Vineyard Porn Trial Won't Let the Jurors Watch the Actual Porn
A couple of years ago, this house on Martha's Vineyard was rented by a film crew and every room of it was used in a porn.
Source - A Martha’s Vineyard woman is suing a man to whom she rented her seasonal home, alleging that he allowed the residence to be used as a set for a “multitude” of scenes for pornographic movies that prominently featured her artwork as background props. Leah Bassett, a longtime resident of the town of Aquinnah on the island, has sued Joshua Spafford, the man she says leased her home under false pretenses, and production company Mile High Distribution Inc. and its associates. Two entertainment companies that distribute pornography are also named.
You might assume that as jury duty goes, it'd be hard to find a trial better than this one. I spent 17 years working in the Massachusetts court system and sat through everything from murder trials all the way down down to the absolute Judge Judy dreck of two women suing each other over a second hand wedding dress. You could see the look in the eyes of the poor bastards who had their lives rearranged to settle a beef between two shrews over a dress that might have been worth 300 bucks. Like they were all ready to pass the hat, hand the plaintiffs money out of their own pockets and get back their homes, jobs and families. Or just hand them knives and let them fight it out in Trial by Combat.
But this? Getting to asked to play god in a trial when all the evidence presented will be nothing but adult films? And it's your sworn, legal obligation to watch them carefully? That's like opening up your Jury Duty notice and finding a Golden Ticket inside.
You would think, anyway. But unfortunately life doesn't work like that.
Source - The judge’s chambers and jury box will not be transformed into a theater for adult films to sort out a mess of copyright claims regarding pornographic movies shot at an artist’s Martha’s Vineyard home, a Massachusetts federal judge said Tuesday.
Amid arguments in her seventh-floor Boston courtroom, U.S. District Judge Patti B. Saris put lawyers for both sides on notice that they would need to find a way other than hosting viewings to prove whether the presence of the artist’s paintings and other works in her home amounted to copyright violations.
“How do I decide? Short of watching every movie myself — which I do not intend to do — and I do not intend to have a jury do it,” Judge Saris said. “I can’t ask a jury to sit through that kind of a movie for hours and hours. That is not what’s going to happen here.”
On behalf of the fellow citizens of the Commonwealth, I'd like to apologize to these 12 people, good and true, trying to perform their civic duty. They're getting assigned to the right case, but with the wrong person presiding. We are all sorry that you had to get Judge McNoFun assigned to this one. Now instead of getting to really roll up your sleeves, dive into the work, go through the the exhibits with a fine-toothed comb and carefully weigh all the evidence, you'll be listening to attorneys drone on about paintings and copyright laws and rental agreements. I guess the lesson here is sometimes even in the Halls of Justice, there is no justice.