Top Attorney – Jeffrey J. Douglas
Santa Monica, CA/Press/November 29, 2018- Jeffrey J. Douglas, Founder and Attorney of The Law Office of Jeffrey J. Douglas was selected for inclusion into the Top Attorneys of North America 2018-2019 edition of The Who’s Who Directories.
The accomplishments attained by Mr. Jeffrey J. Douglas in the field of Legal Services, warrants inclusion into the Top Attorneys of North America. 
JEFFREY J. DOUGLAS is a Santa Monica lawyer, offering caring and successful criminal defense. He is admitted to practice in all California State and Federal courts. Mr. Douglas has also achieved notable successes in a diverse range of criminal defense matters such as drunk driving, political demonstrations, controlled substance cases, child molestation, child pornography, workers’ compensation and fraud.
Early in his career, Jeffrey J. Douglas was one of two attorneys representing Virginia McMartin, in one of the century’s most notorious criminal prosecutions. The seventy-three year old grandmother was one of seven defendants charged with hundreds of counts of molesting over two hundred children enrolled at her preschool. This case, representing a nadir of American justice, involved false allegations of satanic rituals, animal mutilation and child pornography. Ms. McMartin was wholly exonerated after an eighteen month long preliminary examination.
Mr. Douglas also was part of a team which reversed the first degree murder conviction of an innocent man. In the depublished case of People v. Glover (1990) 272 Cal.Rptr. 510, the conviction was reversed finding inadequate assistance of the trial attorney. In another notorious case, Mr. Douglas represented the psychologist in the parricide trial of the Menendez brothers, taking an emergency writ to the Court of Appeal to prevent release to the media of a videotaped search of the client’s home and office. (Oziel v. Superior Court (1990) 223 Cal.App.3d 1284.) An opinion successfully argued by Mr. Douglas clarified an issue arising from the voter passed Proposition 47 in People v. Abdallah (2016) 246 Cal.App.4th 736.
Recently Douglas successfully defended the 500th person placed on the F.B.I.’s so-called “Ten Most Wanted List,” Professor Walter Williams, accused of violating three counts of 18 U.S.C. section 2423 (sex travel) and one count of 18 U.S.C. section 2251(c) (transportation of child pornography), requiring a fifteen year mandatory minimum. Following the suppression of substantially all evidence, a plea agreement was reached resolving the matter with one count of 18 U.S.C. § 2423 and a sentence of five years (CR No. 13-302 – PSG.).
Jeffrey J. Douglas has represented and advised all segments of the adult entertainment industry since 1982, from creation, manufacture, and distribution, through direct consumer sales. He represents some of the largest websites offering sexually explicit adult entertainment materials.
Mr. Douglas successfully defended the first website prosecuted in the U.S. for allegedly distributing obscenity, and has received acquittals for clients falsely accused of distributing child pornography, obscenity and of obscene live conduct. He defended the first two obscenity cases to be tried in California in over a decade, both resulting in acquittals of the people charged.
Douglas defended the first two Federal obscenity cases to be tried in many years, led by then-Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez’ “elite” “Anti-Obscenity Prosecution Taskforce.” The prosecution in Phoenix resulted in all human defendants dismissed by the trial court after the jury was empaneled, and the two corporations fined $400.00. Douglas also unsuccessfully defended “Max Hardcore” in the Federal prosecution in Tampa, Florida. That case (8:07–CR–170) resulted in a shocking conviction, but unexpectedly successful sentencing, resulting in the minimum Federal Guideline sentence and a minimal fine, reduced from the guideline of a minimum 1.4 Million Dollars to $75,000.00.
As an expert witness Douglas has testified before a three judge panel of the Southern District of New York, in a challenge to portions of the Communications Decency Act, Nitke v. Ashcroft (Case No. 01 Civ. 11476). He has provided expert testimony in numerous state and Federal courts.
Douglas initiated the litigation and supervised attorney H. Louis Sirkin’s successful Supreme Court challenge to the so-called “Federal simulated child pornography” law, resulting in the landmark First Amendment opinion Ashcroft -vs- Free Speech Coalition, 535 U.S. 234 (2002).
With Free Speech Coalition Director Reed Lee of Chicago, Douglas continues to manage ongoing litigation challenging the constitutionality of 18 U.S.C. § 2257, led by Michael Murray of Berkman, Gordon, Murray & DeVan of Cleveland, Ohio (Free Speech Coalition, et al. v. Attorney General, 2:09-4607) and was an expert and factual witness in that trial. The Government is appealing the resounding victory, striking down key elements of 18 U.S.C. § 2257 in the Third Circuit opinion found at 825 F.3d 149 and a judgment striking down most of the rest at 314 F.Supp.3d 678 (E.D., PA, 2018)
Douglas has been Chair of the Board of Directors of the Free Speech Coalition, the trade association of the adult entertainment industry, for over twenty years. Mr. Douglas is Chairman Emeritus of the First Amendment Lawyers Association, and a Director of the A.C.L.U. Foundation of Southern California.
Mr. Douglas graduated from the University of California Berkeley with a B.A. in Rhetoric, with High Honors (1978) and received his J.D. from the University of California, Los Angeles (1982). He is a member of California Attorneys for Criminal Justice, California Public Defenders Association and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.
The Top Attorneys of North America, a New York based publication, distinguishes and profiles leading attorneys who have reached a recognizable degree of success and leadership in their field. The directory is valued for promoting awareness of the accomplishments within the North American legal community.
