The obscenity case against Shawn Jenkins was declared a mistrial after a juror fell asleep during yesterday’s screening of the allegedly obscene video that Jenkins sold to an undercover cop.
While the jury watched the 90-minute Maximum Hardcore Extreme Vol. 7 one male juror napped and another juror, an elderly woman, turned her head away from the video monitor several times prompting defense lawyer Lou Sirkin to call for a mistrial.
The judge agreed, noting that the prosecutor’s case was largely based on the video and declared a mistrial this morning.
"I just hope that the jury commissioner takes some stock – I'm not blaming him and I'm not passing blame on anybody – but that they clearly set forth the individuals that are summoned to jury duty, that it's really an awesome burden, and it's an awesome responsibility," Sirkin told WCPO, the Cincinnati ABC News affiliate, in a post-trial interview this morning.
Obscenity cases often rest on community values. That makes the viewing of videos in obscenity cases essential, because the jury, representing the community, must decide if a video is obscene after viewing the video “as a whole.”
Jenkins, who owns Tip Top Magazines, the shop where the video in question was sold, was charged with pandering obscenity in 2001 – a charge that carries a sentence of up to one year in prison. This is the second mistrial for the case.
The first trial of the case ended in a mistrial after the prosecutor’s office refused to turn over two other tapes that they had a considered obscene – but that a grand jury refused to indict.
The prosecutor's office intends to begin a third trial of the case in January.
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