https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/01/10/leader-of-aryan-brotherhood-charged-with-five-murders-to-become-his-own-attorney-move-likely-gives-him-unregulated-jail-phone/

SACRAMENTO — In an unexpected twist, a leader of the Aryan Brotherhood prison gang declared this week that he’s decided to give up his experienced court-appointed attorney and instead fight a multiple-murder death penalty case by himself.

Ronald Dean Yandell, 56, widely considered to be one of California’s most influential gangsters, told federal Judge Kimberly Mueller at a hearing Wednesday morning that he wishes to go “pro per,” a legal term meaning to be one’s own attorney, which is derived from the Latin phrase, “propria persona,” or “for one’s self.”