Deadlock in Biafra Trial Results in Dismissal

A Los Angeles jury that split 7 to 5 for acquittal in the Jello Biafra pornography case declared itself deadlocked Thursday and the judge dismissed all charges against the punk rock music star.

As the judge announced there would be no retrial on the charges, the 29-year-old Biafra leaped to his feet screaming, “Yes! We got it!” and ran out of the courtroom into the hallway.

Municipal Judge Susan Isacoff suggested that Biafra, former lead singer of the now defunct Dead Kennedys punk band, and his co-defendant had learned a lesson from the prosecution, which centered on a sexually explicit poster enclosed in a record album. She said the legal issue had not been resolved but “I feel it should be resolved in another case.”

Wide Cross-Section

The jurors, who represented a wide cross-section of occupations and backgrounds, said they split along age lines, with older jurors favoring conviction, while the younger ones--some of them punk rock fans--were for acquittal.

The seven who favored Biafra asked for copies of the poster to take home. Biafra did better than that. He gave each one a copy of the “Frankenchrist” record album and stood in the hallway autographing the enclosed poster for each one.

The jury’s deadlock was announced shortly after jurors sent word that they wanted to listen to the pounding rhythms of the “Frankenchrist” album in the jury room.

Jury forewoman Jane Yuen, 23, a student and secretary, said that was a last-hope effort to settle the jury’s conflict but it did not work.

‘Didn’t Listen’

“Personally, I like punk music, and I’d heard the Dead Kennedys before,” she said. “But they (the jury) really didn’t listen to the whole thing. One woman said she couldn’t take it.

“A lot of people were pretty adamant,” Yuen said. “We tried to be real careful in not letting our personal prejudices interfere.”

She said jurors also became confused about the definition of “harmful matter” in the law.

Biafra, whose real name is Eric Boucher, ran into trouble when his group released the album “Frankenchrist” in 1985 and included a poster by German artist H.R. Giger titled, “Penis Landscape.”

The poster showed disembodied sex organs surrounded by a border of stars and stripes. When a teen-age girl’s mother complained about the poster, Biafra and a number of associates were charged under an infrequently used misdemeanor law charging distribution of harmful matter to a minor.

Charges were dismissed earlier against all but Biafra and Michael Bonnano, 27, general manager of Biafra’s Alternative Tentacles Records, the firm which distributed “Frankenchrist.”

“I’m really happy for the entire art and music world that we weren’t found guilty,” Biafra told reporters.

Philip Schnayerson, attorney for Biafra, saw the case as a classic First Amendment battle for free expression.

“I’m real happy. It’s a win,” Schnayerson said. “There are other targets better for this type of law--the genuine purveyors of smut, not someone trying to express art.”

But Assistant City Atty. Michael Guarino had aggressively sought convictions, claiming the defendants irresponsibly distributed the poster to minors.

‘If this isn’t harmful matter, then nothing is harmful matter,” he said, waving the poster at jurors.

He also ridiculed Biafra for abandoning his usual punk clothing to wear a conservative, three-piece suit to court.

“Everybody in court, including the judge, wears a costume,” Biafra commented.

He said his suit was the same one he wore when he ran for mayor of San Francisco in 1979. He placed fourth in the race.

If Biafra and Bonnano had been convicted, they could have faced maximum penalties of one year in jail and $2,000 in fines. However, spokesmen for the city attorney’s office said from the outset that they were not seeking jail terms.