At R. Kelly's child porn last month, jurors were treated to a special screening of the tape that allegedly depicts the rapper urinating on a 13-year-old girl and having sex with her.

But what if that's actually the better of the "porn at jury duty" scenarios?

In Los Angeles, pornographer Ira Isaacs is on trial for something that's sure to get First Amendment advocates in a tizzy: obscenity. Isaacs' brand of porn, claim prosecutors, is not an exercise in free speech, but a stain on society. ("Obscenity," after all, is not protected speech. The hard part is in defining obscenity.)

That Isaacs is even being prosecuted, it's worth mentioning, is a result of conservative Christian groups lobbying the Bush administration to crack down on smut films; the White House formed a lovely task force to apply taxpayer dollars to the cause in 2005.

Jurors will be charged with determining whether Isaacs' videos offer any "literary, scientific or artistic value." If so, he's in the clear. If not, he's on the hook. And to find out which way the scales of justice will lean, they're gonna heave to watch a helluva lotta gross porn.

For jurors to determine whether Isaacs' work is obscene, they will view hours of hard-core pornography so degrading that in one film, an actress cries throughout, prosecutors said in court papers. [...]

Isaacs predicted that many jurors would not be able to stomach viewing the movies, some of which feature acts of bestiality and defecation.

"It's going to be a circus," he said of the upcoming trial. "I think I'd freak out if I had to watch six hours of the stuff." [LAT]

Depending on your definition of "lucky," the judge overseeing the case is Alex Kozinski, chief judge of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, a free speech defender.