Copy pasta from awhile back:
To be "fair" Max Hardcore did rape and abuse women on set. He was a sore spot due to a failed attempt at obscenity charges by a LA prosecutor. Max ended up pleading to a nuisance charge and paying $100,000, but they had to drop two charges including a child porn charge.
He "got away" because of the passing of Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition which took precedence over Child Pornography Prevention Act of 1996 which was struck down for being too vague and broad.
Child porn was previously protected by free speech until New York vs Ferber in 1982. Reasoning being:
The use of children as subjects of pornographic material is harmful to the physiological, emotional, and mental health of the child
The standard of Miller v. California, 413 U.S. 15, for determining what is legally obscene is not a satisfactory solution to the child pornography problem
The advertising and selling of child pornography provide an economic motive for and are thus an integral part of the production of such materials, an activity illegal throughout the Nation
The last note is that the value of permitting live performances and photographic reproductions of children engaged in lewd exhibitions is exceedingly modest, if not de minimis
TL:DR While New York vs. Ferber effectively set the age for which actors could be willing participants to 16 years of age, many states set the age of consent to 18 years of age.
So they got Max by using the Child Protection and Obscenity Enforcement Act of 1988, which they didn't even need to use in the first place considering they don't need a warrant to search. He was eventually convicted (on federal level) of transporting obscene matter. The subject matter that Max was eventually convicted for included fisting, urination, and vomiting. One such incident of Max fisting a female, she stated that she didn’t know he was going to do it, and she ended going to the hospital with vaginal hemorrhaging.
He was convicted using the old Miller v. California which is a three prong test:
Obscene defined as "the average person, applying contemporary standards, the predominant appeal of the matter, taken as a whole, is to prurient interest, i.e., a shameful or morbid interest in nudity, sex, or excretion, which goes substantially beyond customary limits of candor in description or representation of such matters and is matter which is utterly without redeeming social importance."
The court further argues that obscenity also constitutes anything that is “grossly repugnant to the generally accepted notions of what is appropriate.” Even fellow pornstars (Ron Jeremy) found Max's work "disgusting," the average person does not find drinking urine to be socially acceptable, and neither does performing fellatio in a puddle of one’s own vomit appeal to the senses.