it was not confiscated when the ship docked, but instead was forwarded to Random House in New York City. As seizure by Customs was essential to the plan for a test case, Morris Ernst, the attorney for Random House, took the unopened package to Customs, demanded that it be seized, and it was. The United States Attorney then took seven months before deciding whether to proceed. While the Assistant U.S. Attorney assigned to assess the work's obscenity felt that it was a "literary masterpiece", he also believed it to be obscene within the meaning of the law. The office therefore decided to take action against the work under the provisions of the Tariff Act of 1930, which allowed a district attorney to bring an action for forfeiture and destruction of imported works which were obscene. This set up the test case. Trial court ruling The seizure of the work was contested in the United States District Court in New York City. The United States, acting as libelant, brought an action in rem against the book itself rather than the author or importer, a procedure in the law that Morris Ernst, attorney for the publisher, had previously asked to have inserted when the statute was passed by Congress. The United States asserted that the work was obscene, therefore not importable, and subject to confiscation and destruction. Random House, as claimant and intervenor, sought a decree dismissing the action, contending that the book was not obscene and was protected by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution which protects free expression. There was no trial as such; the parties agreed that the judge could try issues of fact as well as questions of law, so the trial judge read the entire book and the parties made motions for the relief each sought. Attorney Ernst later recalled the libelant's argument as having three lines of attack: (1) the work contained sexual titillation, especially Molly Bloom's soliloquy, and had "unparlorlike" language; (2) it was blasphemous, particularly in its treatment of the Roman Catholic Church; and (3) it brought to the surface coarse thoughts and desires that usually were repressed. These attributes were perceived as a threat to "long–held and dearly cherished moral, religious, and political beliefs"—in short, it was subversive of the established order. Ernst's argument therefore concentrated on "downplaying the novel's subversive or potentially offensive elements and emphasizing its artistic integrity and