Last Exit to Brooklyn: Encyclopedia II - Last Exit to Brooklyn - Trial

Last Exit to Brooklyn - Trial

The rights for the British edition were acquired by Marion Boyars and John Calder and the novel ended up in the hands of the Director of Public Prosecutions. The manuscript was published, received positive reviews and sold almost 14,000 copies. The director of Blackwell's bookshop in Oxford complained to the DPP about the detailed depictions of brutality and cruelty in the book but the DPP did not pursue the allegations.

In 1966, Sir Cyril Black, a Conservative Member of Parliament for Wimbledon, initiated a private prosecution of the novel before Marlborough Street Magistrates' Court. The court delivered a guilty verdict. The public prosecutor brought an action under Section 2 of the Obscene Publications Act to the jury trial at London's Old Bailey court.

The jury was all male. The witnesses for the prosecution included the publisher, Sir Basil Blackwell. On the defense side were the scholars Al Alvarez II, and professor Frank Kermode, who had previously compared the work to Dickens. Judge Graham Rigers directed that the women "might be embarrassed at having to read a book which dealt with homosexuality, prostitution, drug-taking and sexual perversion". The trial lasted 9 days and the court ruled it guilty.

In 1968, an appeal issued by the lawyer and writer John Mortimer resulted in a judgment by Mr Justice Lane which reversed the ruling. The case marked a turning point in British censorship laws. By this time, the novel has sold over 33,000 hardback and 500,000 paperback copies in the United States.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Trial", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki