Watts

These three matters proceeded simultaneously in the trial court without formal consolidation. In a joint trial of case Nos. 06-1011 and 06-1047, a jury found defendant Chico Romero Watts guilty of being a convicted felon who possessed a firearm, and who possessed ammunition on two different occasions. (Except as to conduct credits, defendant does not claim any error regarding either of these cases. We will therefore only refer to them, when necessary, as the two “possession cases.”) In the subsequent trial in case No. 06-1416, a jury convicted defendant of two counts of battery (as lesser included offenses of the charges of rape and sodomy), infliction of corporal injury on a cohabitant, assault likely to result in great bodily injury, false imprisonment by violence, and battery resulting in great bodily injury; it also sustained a number of enhancement allegations. The trial court sustained recidivist allegations (as well as allegations that defendant committed these offenses while on bail for the possession cases) and sentenced defendant to state prison.

On appeal, defendant contends that the court improperly denied his request to represent himself; abused its…