SLEAZE, LEGA LESE & HOW TO HU

TLE THE COURT

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concept of justice was molded by the Supreme Court
under Chief Justice Earl Warrren. The Warren Court reigned
over a broad regime of beneficial criminal justice reforms,
most famously the Miranda warnings that forced police
to inform suspects of their basic Constitutional rights. Its
hard to believe that the now-familiar phrase, You have the
right to remain silent is such a recent achievement.
I was home from college, visit-
ing my mom and grandmother. We happened to be standing
in the parking lot of the distinctive black oval building on the
edge of Beverly Hills known as the Flynt Building. (Larry
had moved his headquarters there a few years previously.) It
was a weird time. The country had been whipped into a fren-
zy by the Republican attempt to impeach Bill Clinton for lying
about an Oval Office blowjob from White House intern
Monica Lewinsky. (Lewinsky and I, by the way, had gone to
LIFE WITH LAWYERS
I remember that moment in Beverly Hills because it
brings together many strands of my life and career
that still continue today. Just as I seemed destined
to pursue a career in law, my path is also strangely
interwoven with a growing affinity and appreciation
of Larry Flynts actions and legal precedents. For
one thing, I knew what it was like to live your life
with one or more lawyers at your side.
80 HUSTLER ANNIVERSARY 2014
The jury is in on that perversion case, Your Honor.
CLASSIC CARTOON, PUBLISHED JANUARY 85
STRAIGHT TALK
When I was little, I was afraid of my dad's office. He was a criminal defense lawyer
and when I thought of criminals, it was kidnappers in creepy vans. I thought they would
get me; and during my youth I had to endure threats on my life and on that of my
parents. After they were divorced, my mom ventured into the even more treacherous
universe of family law and moved her offices to what later became the Flynt Building,
where I still have offices today.
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HUSTLER PUBLISHES A PARODY AD WITH EVANGELIST JERRY FALWELL RECALLING HIS FIRST TIME WITH
HIS OWN MOTHER. THE SPOOF LEADS TO A HISTORIC 1988 SUPREME COURT RULING IN FLYNTS FAVOR.
LAS DOPEST ATTORNEY
DELIVERS A PERSONAL ODE
TO LARRY FLYNTS LEGAL
ODYSSEY AND WHAT IT
MEANS TO WORKADAY
DEFENDERS.
BY ALLISON B. MARGOLIN
WITH J. RAZA LAWRENCE
I come from a long line of rabid Progressives,
many of whomlike both my parentshave
been attorneys. My 85-year-old cousin once called
a radio station saying Republicans did not deserve
to live. My grandmother, a Polish Holocaust sur-
vivor, grew up in a Socialist environment that tol-
erated abortion and prostitution. She embraced
capitalism, but could never stand closed-minded-
ness and greed.
My mom wanted to be a criminal defense
lawyer ever since she watched Perry Mason on TV
in the late 50s. She grew up in a nation whose
OUTRAGEOUS CONDUCT
By the time Larry hit his stride in the 80s, things had
changed. The stakes of stirring up trouble in the Age of
Reagan were high. In 1983, I was just six years old, but the
consequences of what Larry was doing would define my
generation. That year, he leaked FBI surveillance tapes of
carmaker John DeLorean, who was being prosecuted for
trafficking cocaine. The tape ultimately led to DeLoreans
acquittal. Flynt was able to intervene in a human beings
life and influence his fate.
A lot of people think Larry is nothing more than a smut
peddler. He is a smut peddler. But he also operates on a
higher level, with his outrageous conduct often setting
important legal precedents and expanding all our free-
doms. I think Larry does what he does because hes a true
humanitarian, even if hes also stubborn and likes the
attention. I am also fully aware that his legal battles are
aimed at protecting his business and allowing him to keep
making m oney at what he does. But whatever his internal
motivations, his strategy has a way of setting important
precedents for how citizens express themselves and how
we lawyers can defend them.
The most famous case of that, of course, is Hustler
Magazine v. Falwell. HUSTLER ran a parody ad depicting
the Reverend Jerry Falwell reminiscing about his first
time with his own mother in an outhouse. The case went
all the way to the conservative Supreme Court under
Justice William Rehnquist. In a surprise unanimous opin-
ion, it ruled that parodies of public figures are protected by
the First Amendment even if they cause emotional dis-
tress. Or, as Larry puts it, If youre not going to offend any-
body, you dont need the First Amendment. Again, in our
age of Saturday Night Live and The Daily Show, its hard to
believe our common history is so recent. We can legally poke
fun at polticians and celebrities thanks to a battle between a
pornographer and an evangelist over a dirty joke. Its typical
of Larry to preserve freedom in such an unseemly way. >>
As I grew up, I quickly learned about the kind of miscarriages of justice typified by
bad government policy such as the drug war, a cause that has formed the basis of my
career. I grew to learn that the people we brand as criminals are not all violent or sex
offenders. More often than not theyre people who have different views of normality
and different ways of experiencing the mysteries of life. >>
the same high school.)
Flynt, a die-hard Democrat, had responded to the Clinton-
Lewinsky witchhunt with some choice checkbook journal-
ism, exposing the infidelities of impeachment committee
member Bob Livingston, a right-wing Congressman from
Louisiana. The hypocrite (a breed Flynt particularly detests)
resigned in disgrace.
Standing there in the shadow of HUSTLER headquarters
that day in the wake of the Livingston payback, my mom said
to me, Larry Flynt is our familys political hero. A man who
publishes spread shots of naked women is our familys
hero? How did this happen?
On a sunny California day in 1998
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Ive come to observe first-hand how the forces of injustice
can mutilate a persons life and happiness. Its hard to not just
buckle under and avoid trouble. Larry Flynt is a role model for
people like me because he boldly immerses himself in our cul-
ture in a non-traditional but highly influential way, exposing the
truth and leveling the legal playing field.
Most recently, I was impressed with Larrys outspokenness
on the issue of capital punishment, which both he and I agree
is a barbaric, expensive and wholly ineffective activity that no
advanced society should practice.
When white supremacist serial killer Joseph Paul
Franklinwho admitted to shooting and paralyzing Larrywas
scheduled to die by lethal injection, Larry loudly opposed the
execution. In doing so, he was able to use the powerful image
of his own body, paralyzed and confined to a wheelchair, to
drive home an important point about a major failing in our jus-
tice system that has to be fixed. I have had many years in this
wheelchair to think about this topic he said. As I see it, the
sole motivating factor behind the death penalty is vengeance,
not justice.
It is that kind of straight talk and clear thinking inspires
lawyers like me, who too often find themselves mired in equiv-
ocation and legalese. Our laws are organic and subject to inter-
pretation. It takes unique people like Flynt to keep them evolv-
ing in a fair and humane direction.
That is how a man who publishes spread shots of naked
women became a hero to a family of lawyers.
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THE HOLLYWOOD BIOPIC THE PEOPLE VS. LARRY FLYNT STARRING WOODY HARRELSON HITS MOVIE
SCREENS AND RACKS UP AWARDS. THE FORMER MOONSHINE RUNNER BECOMES A LIVING LEGEND.
Send Falwell in when he gets here. I want to see
the look on the fuckers face.
CARTOON PUBLISHED JANUARY 84, IN THE MIDST OF HUSTLERS BATTLE AGAINST EVANGELIST JERRY FALWELL