TAMPA - His friends couldn't help but giggle when he rose from his chair in a Hillsborough courtroom this week and said, "Objection, your honor!"
There was Teddy Roberts, all 165 pounds of him, wearing a borrowed blue button-down shirt, standing alone at the defense table.
But this was no laughing matter. Roberts was in big trouble, facing a litany of charges that could send him to prison for the rest of his life. He was accused of punching his pregnant girlfriend in the stomach and shouting, "I want to kill your baby."
Roberts had spent the past year in jail, declaring his innocence and pondering his upcoming trial. He thought the public defender wasn't doing enough to help him.
So on Monday, just before the trial, Roberts fired his lawyer. The 23-year-old inmate would go it alone.
He did his own jury selection, cross examined the state's witnesses and called himself to testify. He referred to himself in the third person, made one witness cry, and occasionally turned to the judge and said, "Um, can I get some evidence from up there?"
His initial nervousness grew into confidence, and before long, he was pacing the courtroom with a bit of a swagger, a legal pad tucked beneath his arm.
And while he stumbled through the entire process - eliciting frequent objections from prosecutors - even they said he did a better job than they would have thought.
"He had some great arguments," said prosecutor Lea Roberts.
When jurors filed back into the courtroom on Wednesday, ready to deliver their verdict, Roberts stood tall, his hands clasped behind his back.
"He was in high spirits," said his sister, Anitress Thornton. "He thought it was all gonna go good."
But, as any lawyer could have told him, it almost never does when a man defends himself.
* * *
It began, prosecutors told the jury, as a love story.
Theodore Roberts and Tashia Smith met two summers ago. They quickly professed their love, exchanged gold engagement rings and planned a church wedding. Smith selected an off-white gown at David's Bridal with a lace bodice and mermaid tail.
But Smith told jurors that Roberts became abusive.
He chased Smith into her cousin's apartment, kicked the door off its hinges, hurled a steak knife at her then punched her in the stomach, she told the jury. He also had choked her and kicked her car on previous occasions, she said.
"I want him," she said later, "to spend his life in jail."
* * *
Throughout the trial, Roberts referred to himself in the third person.
"After Mr. Roberts pushed the door in, tell me what he next proceeded to do," he said, while cross-examining Smith's cousin, Ebony Bass.
"You grabbed her and you choked her," Bass said. "You choked her and threw her across the living room."
Sometimes, he would switch back to the first person and gesture wildly.
"After I struck her and I threw her across the living room, can you tell me how I threw her?" Roberts asked Bass. Was it like a world wrestler body slam? He pantomimed for the jury, scooping up air and then hurling it to the ground.
In the back of the courtroom, his public defender shook his head.
Roberts also had trouble phrasing questions.
"When you say you didn't have any contact with Mr. Roberts between the time Mr. Roberts - the time you say you did not take Mr. Roberts to Ms. Bass' apartment, what led, why did Mr. Roberts pursue you?" he asked the victim, Tashia Smith.
The prosecutors objected to the confusing question, and the judge agreed.
But Roberts did some things right, prosecutors said later, including pointing out inconsistencies in witness statements.
He dwelled on the fact that witnesses had given different accounts of which door he broke through - the back vs. the front.
If they can't get the little stuff right, Roberts asked the jury, what about the big stuff?
Also, he wondered how he could have been standing two feet from Smith when he hurled silverware at her.
"I'm two feet away, and I miss? I would not miss," he said.
He pointed out that the women - Smith and Bass - could have overpowered him.
"I've seen plenty of males whupped by females," he told the jury. "That's a bunch of you know what."
He called his own witnesses - his sister and cousin - to testify that he had never been violent with Smith, and that she, in fact, had abused him.
"Tashia bit Teddy on the cheek," his sister told the jury.
"Please, no nicknames," he scolded her gently from the podium.
* * *
It's rare, attorneys agree, for clients to defend themselves.
Many threaten to, but end up changing their minds, said John Skye, spokesman for the Hillsborough public defender's office.
"People think what we do is easy, that it's no big deal," he said. "In fact, it is a big deal."
It takes time to learn the rules of evidence, how to phrase questions, how to deliver a compelling closing argument.
Often, a lawyer and client have different ideas about what a case needs. Almost always, the lawyer is right, Skye said.
"People like Mr. Roberts are following their hearts, rather than their heads," he said. "They make bad decisions."
Skye said Roberts' lawyer, Richard Strickland, was a talented public defender, a former military appellate judge.
"He is a good and conscientious lawyer," Skye said. "Mr. Strickland would have given, and did give, Mr. Roberts' case all the attention it needed."
Strickland declined to comment.
* * *
Roberts' friends and relatives filed into court Wednesday to hear the verdict.
"I was really worried when he fired his lawyer," said his aunt, Cherylene Levy. "But he really impressed me. I've been saying, if he wins this case, he needs to go to law school and become a lawyer."
Then the jury came back: guilty, guilty, guilty.
The five men and one woman convicted him on the most serious charges, including aggravated battery on a pregnant woman, armed burglary with assault, domestic battery and harassing telephone calls.
Roberts stood alone, looking down.
Judge Barbara Fleischer reduced one criminal mischief charge, saying prosecutors had failed to prove it and Roberts didn't know enough to challenge it.
She told Roberts he could face life in prison when he was sentenced on June 6.
"I urge you to have the benefit of a lawyer to represent you during sentencing," she said.
He sighed. He looked down.
"Again, I urge you," she told Roberts. "You have nothing to lose and everything to gain."
Silence.
"Mr. Roberts," she said. "I have been very patient."
"I. . ." He paused and looked up. "Would like to have one represent me for sentencing."
With that, the public defender Strickland, who sat through the trial in case Roberts changed his mind, joined him at the defense table.
Roberts' family was teary eyed as he walked out of the courtroom, his leg shackles jangling.
Prosecutors were glad the case was over.
It had been frustrating.
"Almost everything he said was objectionable," said prosecutor Ryan Sawdy. But they had to pick their objections carefully so they didn't constantly interrupt the trial and annoy jurors.
"There were definitely things an attorney could have done," Sawdy said, "to make his case stronger."
