The late Judge Julius Hoffman was the Chicago judge who allowed the antics of the group of defendants known as the Chicago Eight (Seven) and their lawyers to get to him on too personal a level.
Hoffman had been a judge since 1947, many years before the 1969 trial that gave him his temporary celebrity. Hoffman by that time was 74, and perhaps somewhat short of patience.
The group had been involved in protesting America's involvement in Vietnam, long before such protests had become "socially acceptable."
Most outspoken of the group was Bobby Seale, who hurled epithets at the judge and refused to be silent when ordered to do so. Contempt citations for disrupting the courtroom flew fast and furious, especially in Seale's direction. Finally, Judge Hoffman ordered Seale bound and gagged and tied to a courtroom chair. When not even that stopped Seale, Hoffman severed his case from that of the other defendants, making it the Chicago Seven. In the end, Hoffman gave Seale the longest contempt sentence ever given in a U.S. court.
In 1972, an appeals court reversed all contempt convictions issued during that infamous, wild and wooly case.
Hoffman died in 1983 at age 87.
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