You can’t ban him from participating in his own defense.
You can’t ban him from participating in his own defense.
Bobby Seale was bound and gagged in the courtroom to prevent him from participating in his own defense, (he was not allowed to have his own lawyer, and was convicted of 16 cases of contempt for asking for his own lawyer in court) and eventually his case was severed from those of the other 7 defendants, who never challenged the federal felony charges on a constitutional basis. Consequently, federal courts routinely use this trial as a precedent to prosecute for state misdemeanors as federal felonies.