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4.2.12 WC: 191694 Deep Throat: Why I Chose Not to Watch It My initial victory in the / Am Curious Yellow case—getting a three judge court to declare unconstitutional all obscenity laws that applied to adults-only theaters—made me something of a hero in the “adult film” industry—and something of a pariah in the radical feminist community. (More about the latter soon.) Many “obscenity” clients came my way, including the musical play Hair which was “banned in Boston” and several “soft core” films such as the very forgettable “Belinda’”** and the unforgettable hard core film, Deep Throat.*’ I’m told that Deep Throat is a very hard core and very bad movie. I can’t personally attest to these claims because, to this day, I have not seen it.** I avoided seeing the film not because I’m a prude—I enjoy a good erotic movie as much as the next guy—but rather because I wanted to make a point about the law of obscenity: the decision to watch or not to watch a particular film should be a matter of choice for every adult citizen. Just as I told the judges in the / Am Curious Yellow case that they didn’t have to view the film in order to rule that an adult had the constitutional right to view it in an adults-only theater, so too I had the right to argue that position without myself viewing Deep Throat. To paraphrase my earlier case, I was “curious” about Deep Throat, but cared more about the principle of choice. I also believed that my not viewing the film was a good tactic that helped to dramatize my point. I decided to use that tactic in two separate cases involving the Deep Throat case. The first was the prosecution of porno-actor Harry Reems for his role as an actor in the film. Reems was the first actor in history ever to be prosecuted for the crime of obscenity. He was charged with participating in a nation-wide conspiracy to transport an obscene film in interstate commerce. The United States government charged him with conspiracy because Reems himself had nothing to do with distributing the film in interstate commerce. As the prosecutor acknowledged: “TReems]| made the film, got his money and got out back in 1972, that is, he didn’t do anything else as a part of the conspiracy, he didn’t do any more overt acts, he didn’t participate any further, and the question arises why in the thunder does he wind up being charged [with acts that took place] four years later?” His answer was that “once a person joins a conspiracy, he is liable for everything that happens in that conspiracy until it is ended.” (Reems once asked me whether he could have been charged with murder under the prosecutor’s theory, if some strong-arm methods used by the distributors had resulted in a death years after the film had been completed. I told him that—under the prosecution theory—he could charged with that crime.) © See The Best Defense pages 174-78. 37 T was also involved—either as a defense lawyer, consultant or commentator—in the defense of several magazines and books. See e.g. Dershowitz, Shouting Fire, pages : 8 During a preview of a film off Broadway about the Deep Throat controversy I saw some soft core excerpts. They were God awful. 106 HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_017193