WASHINGTON -- Hustler magazine Publisher Larry Flynt, denied the right to argue his own case before the Supreme Court in a libel suit, shouted obscenities at the justices today after a court-appointed lawyer argued his case.
He was promptly taken into custody.
Flynt, sitting in a wheelchair in the back of the marble and mahogany courtroom, shouted four-letter words and complained his right to acceptable representation was being denied.
He also personally insulted the nine justices. ---
'Fuck this court. You denied me the counsel of my choice,' Flynt screamed.
He then shouted at the court members, 'They're nine assholes and a cunt.' ---
The rest of his comments were muffled as court police wheeled him out of the court room.
Chief Justice Warren Burger then raised his voice and ordered: 'Inform the (court's) marshall to take that man into custody.'
The court's public affairs office said Flynt was held for contempt of court, but the exact charges might not be clear until his arraignment, expected later today.
The court Monday rejected Flynt's bid to personally argue his case before the high court and took the unusual step of appointing a lawyer - Stephen Shapiro of Chicago -- to argue in his place.
Flynt, 40, asked the court late last week to allow him to argue his case in a suit involving a rival magazine, Penthouse.
In a telegram, Flynt told the court he had read the record and all the briefs in the case, and had studied up on the law.
Flynt, whose legs are paralyzed, was wheeled into the courtroom right after the arguments began at 10 a.m. Flanked by his bodyguard, he watched quietly as the lawyer for Kathy Keeton, an executive for the rival Penthouse magazine, argued her case.
She sued Flynt for libeling her in a May 1976 cartoon depicting her common-law husband, Penthouse publisher Robert Guccione, as infecting her with a venereal disease. She asked $80 million in damages.
She lost her case in two lower courts but the Supreme Court earlier this year agreed to hear the case.
Shapiro was the third lawyer to represent Flynt in the case.
The original lawyer, Lea Brilmayer, a Yale law professor, said she withdrew last month because of a profane letter Flynt sent Justice Sandra Day O'Connor.
Flynt sent the letter when Mrs. O'Connor's secretary wrote him refusing a free subscription to Hustler magazine. Flynt sent the free subscriptions to all nine justices. ---
Flynt, 40, said, 'I'll take you off my subscription list when you resign from the court.
'If she is so offended by what I represent, how can she be unbiased about any case involving me?' Flynt told United Press International.
The issue in Ms. Keeton's case involves whether it was proper for her to file the libel suit in New Hampshire when neither she nor Flynt live there.
Shapiro argued she could not but ran into a barrage of hostile questioning by the justices.
