MARTINEZ, Calif. — It was a war of words at the Susan Polk trial Monday morning, and no one, not even the judge, escaped the barbs and accusations of misconduct that were lobbed after the jury was excused.

"The court has given you a tremendous amount of latitude. You have no idea how much," Judge Laurel Brady warned Polk, who is defending herself against charges that she stabbed her husband to death with a paring knife, an act she claims was self-defense.

"Well, I object that you are aligning yourself with the prosecution," Polk shot back as Brady left the bench and repeated once again: "Ms. Polk, we are in recess."

After three days of tedious cross-examination of her son, Gabriel, a witness for the prosecution, Polk was ordered by Brady to finish her questioning Tuesday.

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"You are losing this jury," Brady told Polk.

"I object to you making these statements publicly," Polk interrupted, noting later that she believed that forcing her to cut her cross-examination short was grounds for "judicial misconduct."

The prosecutor argued that he believed Polk was mounting a "filibuster," after she had spent several days asking Gabriel about everything from schoolyard fights to the care of the family's dogs, yet still failing to question him about the days leading up to Oct. 15, 2002, when he found his father's bloody body in a cottage on the couple's $1.85 million property.

"She's not only losing this jury," Assistant District Attorney Paul Sequeira said. "She's completely making this trial a farce."

Polk argued for more time, as she felt she was getting "very close" to having her son concede on the stand that he had been coached in his testimony by the district attorney.

"I think this court is overlooking prosecutorial misconduct on the part of Mr. Sequeira," Polk said.

"I have not seen any misconduct, and if there was I would chastise Mr. Sequiera," the judge said.

Polk's belief that she is the target of a campaign of misconduct, and her repeated efforts to draw out such evidence through her son's testimony, led to admonishments from Brady Monday morning.

"That was totally inappropriate and you know better," Brady said after the jury was dismissed.

"What did I do?" Polk asked.

What Polk did, and what raised the judge's ire, was another in a series of defamatory remarks about the prosecutor, slipped into a question she posed to Gabriel about his brother Eli's arrest last week stemming from an alleged domestic violence incident.

"Are you aware that the district attorney is engaging in a discriminatory and malicious prosecution against Eli, because he is a witness in my case?" Polk asked, causing the judge to end the morning's session.

"Don't do it again," Brady told Polk. "I do have the authority to stop the examination and I will."

Brady warned that she would also revoke Polk's pro per, or self-representation, status if necessary. Polk has fired four attorneys, the last of whom was defense attorney Daniel Horowitz, whose wife was murdered in the first week of trial, causing a mistrial.

But Brady's sharpest comments were reserved for Polk's handling of her own son on the stand.

"I believe that this cross-examination is bordering on the abusive," Brady said. "I am telling you that you will finish tomorrow."

It was a stinging rebuke to a woman whose self-defense rests on her claim that she suffered for years from mental and physical abuse at her husband's hands.

Gabriel has testified that his mother was "delusional" and openly discussed killing his father, Felix Polk, in the years leading up to his death. He has denied any abuse on his father's part, and claimed on Monday that his mother fed the family lies and refused to take psychiatric medication that his therapist father suggested she take.

The jury will return Tuesday.

Polk's mother, Helen Bolling, a witness for the defense, was asked to leave court Monday when the judge spotted her in the gallery and repeated that witnesses are not allowed to be in the courtroom before they are called to the stand.

The frail, white-haired 72-year-old, chatted briefly with reporters outside, and shared a story about the time she and her daughter were having an argument in the car, when Gabriel, a child at the time who came up to her waist, tried to verbally defend his grandmother.

"I told him, 'Gabriel, no, don't get involved in the adult stuff,'" Bolling recalled. "In other words, don't take sides. That was the cardinal rule, with me: Don't take sides with the adults."

Bolling said she had not spent time with Gabriel since the "incident" with his father, but was "sad" to see him on the stand, taking sides, as he testified against his mother.