FLINT, MI -- City Councilman Eric Mays is getting his day in court on drunken driving and other charges.

But with Mays acting as his own attorney, Tuesday, May 20, was anything but standard operating procedure in Flint District Court.

Judge Nathaniel C. Perry told the councilman, "You are your own worst enemy," and "You don't know what you're doing," after Mays declined an offer from attorney Nicholas Robinson to represent him.

Perry warned Mays to "stop the soap-boxing" when he didn't answer a question directly and told him several times not to turn his back while speaking to him.

He warned the councilman once that he may be backing his "way into contempt charges."

"You misunderstand the whole idea of court rules," the judge said. "If you need help, you probably should ask for it."

"(The case is about) whether or not you drank and drove," Perry told Mays at one point. "It's not about a conspiracy" against him, the judge said.

Mays and special city attorney Michael J. Gildner agreed to a five-woman, two-man jury after several hours of questioning potential jurors Tuesday, and Perry ordered them to return to court at 9:30 a.m. Thursday, May 22, to begin hearing testimony in the case.

Mays faces five misdemeanor charges tied to a November arrest in which police allege they found him trying to change a tire on a vehicle with four blown-out or missing tires and which was facing the wrong way on I-475 at the time.

The charges against Mays include operating a vehicle while intoxicated, possession of marijuana, no proof of insurance, failure to report an accident and refusal to be fingerprinted.

Although the trial only started Tuesday, Mays suggested in jury questioning that he was targeted by someone willing to "put stuff in your drinks" and "cut tires" on the vehicle involved in the incident.

"It's possible that somebody might have slipped something into a drink," he said. "I believe 20 percent of the people are good ... but 20 percent of the people ain't of God. They just do bad stuff."

Although Gildner allowed Mays to do most of the talking during jury selection today, the special prosecutor asked potential jurors to imagine a car being driven with two tires missing and two others flat.

"If a vehicle is just driving around on its rims, is that a safety hazard?" he asked one juror.

Gildner asked another juror if they could imagine a circumstance in which police officers "are just making it all up" when they report finding one person outside the disabled vehicle.

The man they arrested told police he was out drinking and that he "messed up" and was trying to fix his tire, Gildner said.

Here's some of what else happened in the court proceedings: