The Madness of Joe Francis: "I thought we were all just having fun. I was wrong." (29 page)

Francis was all motion: his shoulders shifting, eyebrows jerking. He gestured, bobbed and weaved through his argument. Smoak, when he wasn’t looking down at his desk, sat perfectly still with his eyes tracking Francis as he weaved his way through his argument.

“You know what I’m sayin’?” he asked the judge.

Smoak tried to get him to understand that McCloy was allowed to talk about the ages, but Francis continued to argue until Smoak just told him, “This is the way it’s going to be.”

McCloy returned to the easel and wrote the plaintiffs’ ages on the sheet.

He asked the panel if the girls’ ages had an impact on anyone, one way or the other.

“There’s going to be some films you’ll have to watch, including nudity with all these girls.”

“Personally,” one woman said, “I don’t want to watch. I’ve never watched an adult rated movie.”

Anyone ever seen a “Girls Gone Wild” video? Two men raised their hands.

Anyone ever attended a Girls Gone Wild party? No one confessed to that.

McCloy started into another issue that Francis was sensitive to, the issue of liability.

“Basically, it’s a case of sexual exploitation of minors.”

Objection. Sidebar.

“This is argument, your honor,” Francis began.

Smoak said something quietly to him and Francis asked that at least the jurors should be told that the reason the companies were defaulted on was because they couldn’t afford an attorney.

Smoak tried to explain his ruling and occasionally glanced down at his desk as he sorted his thoughts. Francis bobbed and stooped each time Smoak looked down, trying to maintain eye contact and press his point.

When the sidebar broke, McCloy returned to his questions and started explaining the claims for damages. He asked if anyone knew what punitive damages meant.

“Mental problems, physical problems,” one man said.

No, punitive damages were awarded in an effort to punish a defendant.

“That’s why they’re called punitive.”

He explained that Francis had been found personally liable as to one count, sexually exploiting Plaintiff B. That was from a summary judgment ruling much earlier in the case. But jurors were going to have to find whether Francis was liable in the other three counts.

He told them that they would not be allowed to do any independent investigation of their own if they were chosen as a juror.

“All the plaintiffs are trying to do today is to find eight jurors who are willing to do what’s right, whether that’s to rule for Mr. Francis or for us.”

He looked around the room one last time and sat down.

Francis popped up from his seat, gathered some notebooks and went to the podium.

“Good late afternoon everybody,” he started. “It’s not my reason that you’re here. Its because these eight lawyers have sued me.”

“Mr. Francis,” Smoak interrupted him.

“I’m just saying hello, your honor, just like he did. But I’ll cut to the chase.”

“How many of you recognize me?” Francis asked, holding his hands out, palms up, and turning slowly from the jury box to the prospective jurors sitting in the gallery seats. Most hands were up. “A lot of you. I don’t know if that’s good or bad.”

“How many of you have a negative view of Girls Gone Wild?” He looked around slowly. “There’s a lot of hands here.”

Francis looked at the tomato farmer, who had his hand raised. “You really don’t want to be on jury duty,” his laugh trailed off into a giggle. “You’ll go for anything.”

He looked at a woman with her hand raised: “What’s your negative deal?”

“I just think it’s morally wrong,” she said.

“What is?”

“Nudity.”

“Nudity is morally wrong?”

“Pubic. Public nudity is immoral.”

She said she had two daughters and wouldn’t want them flashing for Girls Gone Wild.

“So, are you biased against the women participating or against Girls Gone Wild?”

“I just don’t think they should be doing it.”

One woman said she wasn’t interested in seeing a video that included nude minors. Francis turned to the group in the box and said that just because he was being sued didn’t mean he’d done something wrong.

“Anybody can sue anybody for anything. I can sue somebody for murder …”

“Mr. Francis, come up here,” Smoak called to him from the bench. He tried to keep his voice down as he told Francis, “Ask your questions in a dispassionate, professional manner. This is not like ‘Let’s Make a Deal, come on down.’ You’re not to get up there and debate with them. I want you to take this to heart.”

Francis returned to his seat while Smoak gave the jurors a brief history of the jury trial system in America and how it had been a primary reason for the Revolutionary War.

“It’s pretty important that we carry out what those men thought was worth starting a war over,” he said.

When the judge was done, Francis stood and said, “What the judge is trying to say …” I’m sure Smoak loved that.

Francis resumed his questions about the jurors’ feelings about him and Girls Gone Wild.

“You want the truth?” one woman asked him. “I’m not interested in any video with minor girls.”

“I agree, child pornography is awful, it’s disgusting, it’s wrong,” Francis spat out. He was on a roll. “Personally, I’m opposed to that. It’s disgusting. That’s me.”

McCloy stood and said to the judge, “May I invite us up to the bench this time?”

Francis looked from McCloy to Smoak, “For what?”

Smoak again told him that jury selection was not the time for him to talk about his own feelings.

Francis resumed his questioning by asking who had seen his late night television commercials.

“What I see,” one man said, voicing his opinion about the commercials, “is someone has gotten young women drunk and taken advantage of the situation.”

He assured Francis that his opinion wouldn’t influence him if he was chosen as a juror.

“There’s a lot of things I don’t like,” he said, shrugging off the suggestion that he couldn’t be fair.

“Do you not like me?” Francis asked.

“I don’t even know you.”

Does anyone have a positive opinion of Girls Gone Wild?

One man raised his hand.

“I like it.”

“There’s nothing wrong with that,” Francis said, laughing. “It’s a free country.”

“Mr. Francis,” Smoak said quietly.

Another man raised his hand.

“I’ve seen it. I have nothing against it.”

Does anyone have a negative opinion of me? One woman raised her hand.

“Would that influence you as a juror?”

“Absolutely.”

“So you’re biased.”

“Absolutely.”

Another woman raised her hand.

“I agree. I think I would have a very biased opinion of this.”

“This what?”

“Girls Gone Wild, and you too.”

Francis moved back to the main panel and asked the question that Smoak had cautioned the plaintiffs’ attorneys against: “How many of you guys have watched adult entertainment, ever? By a show of hands.”

More than half the panel raised a hand.

Does anyone have a negative opinion of adult entertainment in general?

“I’m a Catholic …” one woman began.

“Me too,” Francis interrupted. “Everybody that I know from my church watches adult entertainment.”

That drew a big laugh from the crowd.

“It’s morally wrong, all of it,” said the same woman who’d first spoke up about not liking Francis and Girls Gone Wild.

Francis asked how many people would be upset if their daughter had used a fake identification to get on a Girls Gone Wild video.

“Would you hold her responsible or would you hold Girls Gone Wild responsible?”

“Both,” one woman said.

“Why?”

“For one, she knows better,” the woman said.

“So you’d hold her responsible, not Girls Gone Wild?”

“I said both.”

“Why would you hold Girls Gone Wild responsible?”

“Because it invites that kind of stuff.”

Smoak called a sidebar and cautioned Francis not to argue with prospective jurors. “I’m going to suggest to you that you do more harm than good.”

But Francis was adamant that he wasn’t doing anything wrong and didn’t want the judge to interrupt his questioning.

“Let me have a fair trial, please.”

But Smoak was bringing his questioning to a close. Francis was gesturing so strenuously that the bailiffs began closing in on him from three sides. They took steps closer to him while keeping a hand on their belts.

“You have five more minutes,” Smoak said. “Choose your questions carefully.”

Francis was pretty worked up as he left the sidebar and walked back to the podium.

“It’s me versus these eight lawyers over here …” he said as he passed the jury box.

“Mr. Francis, there will be no more side comments.”

“OK.”

Francis began on the issue of liability.

“What you might see is there’s no way I did anything wrong.”

“Mr. Francis.”

“I’m just doing what he did,” Francis said, waving toward McCloy.

“Ask questions. Put a question mark on it.”

Francis asked how many in the panel could put bias aside and award a “damage of a dollar” if they found he’d done nothing wrong. Almost everyone raised a hand, but a few crossed their arms over their chests or gripped their knees.

“How many people go to church on Sunday? Yeah, me too.”

How many have seen what goes on in Panama City Beach during Spring Break?

“Are you offended by that?”

One man said he was offended. He was a strict Lutheran and believed that public nudity and public intoxication were wrong. Several others had done a little spring breaking when they were in school.

“It’s different now,” one woman said.

Francis began a question then stopped. “Am I allowed to ask ages?” he said to Smoak.

“You do it at your peril,” the judge joked.

“I think I’ll listen to the judge on that one,” Francis said then laughed.

One man had worked security at beach hotels and it seemed to him that all he saw out there were naked women. A woman had tended bar at a beach pub and had seen a lot of what goes on during Spring Break. She said she was disgusted by a lack of “morale” among the girls on the beach. She repeated it several times until a few people in the panel corrected her.

“Morals,” she said, “the lack of morals.”

Francis began to wind down his questioning.

“Sorry to keep you so long, but I’ve never done this before.”

He looked down at his notes.

“Did Joe Francis do anything wrong here, because they’re going to try to confuse the hell out of you.”

“Mr. Francis, ask a question.”

“It’s my first time, your honor. I thought I was doing good.”

That was it, though, his questions had come to an end. The only thing that was left, was for the parties to question five women in private about whether they knew the plaintiffs.

The rest of the panel was allowed to leave the courtroom and the women were brought into a conference room individually.

During the break a few of the jurors were overheard by a reporter talking about Francis’ constant motion, shrugging and twitching, and theorizing that he might be high on cocaine.

When the individual questioning was over, Francis, Smoak and the lawyers stayed in the conference room and went through the process of eliminating those they didn’t want on the jury. When they were through, eight women remained, including the woman with the 14-year-old daughter who had a strong opinion about both sides and the Wassau woman who knew nothing about the case.

Someone standing in front of the jury box, facing the jurors, would see a young black woman who worked with numbers for a living, an older woman who had recently become a widow, the woman from Wassau and the woman with the 14-year-old daughter. On the back row, a rather severe looking blonde school teacher, the book keeper for a local pavement company, another older widow and an older black woman with a thick Central American accent.

The common opinion among trial attorneys is that women were usually more critical of female plaintiffs and female victims. An all-female jury was thought to be beneficial to Francis.

“What the plaintiffs want,” a lawyer who had come to watch the proceedings said outside the courtroom, “is a jury full of daddies.”

.

Chapter 32

“Ladies of the Jury”

L
arry Selander gripped both sides of the podium, leaned forward and began his opening statement in a slow clear tone. It was hard to tell if he was being polite or condescending.

“Ladies and gentle …., sorry, I mean ladies of the jury,” he said and smiled through his beard. At least two of the women on the jury later said they disliked Selander from his opening words. They said they thought he was talking down to them.

“This is a case about a convicted child pornographer taking advantage of children.”

That drew a snort from Francis, who was fidgeting in his chair.

“He did this in large part for money.”

Francis, he said, made “many millions of dollars” by ignoring the laws in place that regulate the pornography industry and assure that minors are not included in these films.

Selander told the jurors that he would be introducing several long, tedious plea agreements that showed Francis’ crimes.

“They show you what happened here. This was not just four mistakes that happened here with these four girls. This is a business practice.”

Cameramen will testify that their orders were to “shoot first and ask questions later.” Getting scenes was first priority and cameramen were told to save the age questions for later so as to not disrupt the mood.

“Joe Francis is Girls Gone Wild.”

And Girls Gone Wild had changed, he said, from a series of videos that primarily featured girls flashing in public places to videos that now promote more hard-core, graphic sexual content.

“Primarily girl-on-girl, hard-core pornography.”

There were laws in place, Selander continued, that regulate the type of paperwork that is required to ensure the tapes do not include illegal child pornography.