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Judge Richard Posner is countering a pro se litigant’s sovereign-citizen type arguments with a history lesson and a warning.

Though Posner is an appeals judge with the Chicago-based 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, he likes to volunteer for trials. He has drawn the case of Hakeem El Bey, who is accused of defrauding the Internal Revenue Service, Above the Law reports.

In an order issued on Friday, Posner warns El Bey that he will forfeit the right to represent himself at his March 2 trial if he continues to inject “utterly irrelevant, patently inaccurate, and sometimes unintelligible contentions into this case.” Posner writes that he has already appointed stand-by counsel for El Bey, who despite his arguments, “strikes me as an intelligent person, and he has been unfailingly polite in pretrial conferences.”

Posner previously warned El Bey in person and in a Feb. 12 order that he should not try to introduce argument or testimony about the Uniform Commercial Code, the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, admiralty and maritime law, or the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act.

“These bodies of law are totally irrelevant to this criminal prosecution,” Posner writes. “Nor may he argue at trial that this court lacks jurisdiction over him because he is a ‘sovereign citizen’ or citizen of the Cherokee nation (he is in fact a U.S. citizen), that the U.S. government is a corporation or is insolvent, or that the Internal Revenue Service has been dismantled.”

Despite the warning, El Bey has continued to make additional irrelevant arguments, Posner writes. His new court filings assert that the U.S. government owes El Bey $367,500 in “redemption” of damages. El Bey also claims that a Stamp Act treaty with the queen of England had imposed taxes on alcohol and cigarettes, but it “exonerated” Americans of the need to pay all other taxes.

El Bey got his history wrong, Posner writes in his order.

“The Stamp Act was enacted by the Parliament of Great Britain in 1765,” Posner wrote. “It did not relieve Americans of any taxes; on the contrary, it imposed a comprehensive tax on the use of paper by Americans. The Act was not a treaty between Britain and the federal government of the United States, for there was no United States; there were just the 13 British colonies that 11 years later declared independence from Great Britain. There were no federal taxes that the act could have relieved Americans from having to pay. The sovereign of Britain at the time was a king, not a queen; the king’s wife (Princess Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz) was Great Britain’s queen but had no governmental authority.”

WINNIPEG - A so-called "freeman" who claimed justice officials had no right to prosecute him for running a marijuana grow operation in his basement has been sentenced to 13 months house arrest.

Scott David Peters, 45, argued he is not bound by Canadian law, but by a natural law "to do no harm."

"There is a big difference between a person thinking that a particular law is wrong and a person who actually disregards that law," Justice Robert Dewar told Peters.

"This sentence is intended to reinforce the notion that a person is not entitled to pick and choose which laws to obey -- they must all be obeyed," Dewar said. "Consider this sentence an encouragement to start acting like a responsible citizen and govern yourself accordingly."

The evidence against Peters was simple and overwhelming. In April 2012, police executed a search warrant at Peters' Boyd Avenue home and found 58 marijuana plants in the basement. Documents found in the kitchen, including a residential tenancy agreement and change of address form, conclusively tied Peters to the home.

Peters represented himself at trial. During a long and rambling closing address to the jury he referenced everything from the Communist Manifesto to government mind control.

Jurors returned with a guilty verdict almost instantly.

Prosecutors recommended a jail sentence of four to six months. Dewar said a lengthier sentence was required but ruled he should serve it in the community, as was allowed by law at the time of his arrest.

"There is a temptation to penalize Mr. Peters for his approach to defending the charge, but yielding to that temptation is not permitted by our law," Dewar said. "Mr. Peters had every right to require the court to formally prove its case before a jury."

Dewar fined Peters $1,000 and ordered that he complete 100 hours community service work.

Peters previously told court he has no plans to grow marijuana again.

"This is hardly an encouraging sign of remorse, but I view it as a recognition on his part that what he did was wrong or at least not worth the aggravation of doing it again," Dewar said.

Peters' legal troubles aren't over. He is set to stand trial next month on child pornography charges and again will be representing himself.