Disrupting courtroom decorum is an occasional tactic of defendants and even defense lawyers willing to risk violating the canons of their profession. Often with the help of an intemperate judge, they manage to raise a legal ruckus that may very well provoke a mistrial or a judicial error likely to be reversed on appeal. Though the U.S. Supreme Court has not yet laid down rules for obstreperous lawyers, it held last year that a judge has broad powers in dealing with unruly defendants. He can have them gagged or bound, expelled from his courtroom or cited for contempt. For ill-mannered lawyers,...
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