Law&Crime Sidebar - Darrell Brooks Pleads His Case to Jury Who Later Found Him Guilty

Episode Date: October 26, 2022

Law&Crime's Jesse Weber breaks down key moments from Darrell Brooks closing argument in the Waukesha Parade Tragedy Trial as the jury comes back with their verdict!LAW&CRIME SIDEBAR PRODUCTION:YouTube Management - Bobby SzokePodcasting - Sam GoldbergVideo Editing - Logan HarrisGuest Booking - Alyssa FisherSocial Media Management - Kiera BronsonSUBSCRIBE TO OUR OTHER PODCASTS:Court JunkieObjectionsThey Walk Among AmericaCoptales and CocktailsThe Disturbing TruthSpeaking FreelyLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lawandcrimeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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will keep you on the edge of your seat. Don't let your fears take hold of you as you dive into this addictive series. Love thrillers with a paranormal twist? The entire Oracle trilogy is available on Audible. Listen now on Audible. I am a lot of things. A murder is not one of them. We break down the key moments from Dorell Brooks' closing argument in the Washington. Waukesha Parade tragedy trial as the jury comes back with their verdict. Welcome to Sidebar, presented by law and crime. I'm Jesse Weber. We, the jury, find the defendant, Daryl E. Brooks, guilty of first-degree intentional homicide as charged in count one of the information. Dated this 26th day of October 22, signed by the four-person.

Hey, you are to be removed right now. He will not do that. There you have it. The jury came back and found Dorel Brooks guilty across the board, guilty of all 76 charges in connection with him driving an SUV through a group of holiday parade goers back in November of 2021 out of Waukesha, Wisconsin. This is the Waukishaw Holiday Parade Tragedy Trial, which we've covered here on Sibar, as well as the Long Crime Network. This includes him being found guilty of six charges of first-degree intentional homicide, which carry with it, mandatory sentences of life in prison. And the jury deliberated for about three hours and 15 minutes

over the course of a night and also a morning. So now the question is, how did we get here? Well, clearly something didn't work in Brooks's case, right? This was a case where the defendant represented himself. He cross-examined some witnesses. He called some others. And he basically forfeited his right to call any additional witnesses or testify himself when he refused to answer the court's questions. As anybody who's been following this trial or following sidebar knows, Brooks was highly disruptive of the proceedings and highly combative with the judge. But the question is, what did Brooks actually argue? What legal arguments did he make? Well, it was a combination of things. And I think the best place to really see that is with this closing argument. Now, we remember closing arguments

of the last attempt by both the prosecution and the defense to summarize the case and convince this jury one way or another to vote a certain way. And we're going to go through right now some of the key moments from Dorell Brooks closing argument and see where did he go wrong? Well, let's start with how he began the closing argument. First off, I'd just like to start by letting you guys know that it's a lot of information that you guys should be privy to, I believe. and one thing that I believe that you have not been privy to

is the truth of your rights and your duties being the jury the fact that you and you alone have the power not well-prepared DAs with well-prepared DAs with well-prepared appeared and clearly rehearsed speeches and exhibits and a lot of theatrics, frankly, not the judge. You and you alone have the power. You and you alone decide what is truth and what isn't truth. You should be informed that you have the power to nullify any law that you don't agree with. objection

move to strike the statement sustain objection I will strike from the record the last statement made by the defendant

the jury will disregard it which is clearly what I've been saying I believe that not only is it fair but it's essential that

you be privy to all knowledge not knowledge that certain people feel that you should hear and shouldn't hear disguised under the color of law so what exactly is he saying here well he tried unsuccessfully to argue jury nullification to the jurors and that is totally improper and he's not supposed to do that jury nullification is when the jurors come back with a not guilty verdict even if the evidence says otherwise, even if they feel that the prosecution has proven their case beyond a reasonable

doubt, they can come back and say, nope, nope, come back, not guilty. It's like they ignore the law, they ignore the facts, and they're basically making a decision for another reason. Maybe it's based on emotion, politics, who knows, they are not supposed to do that. And it is totally improper to argue that to the jury. And I'll tell you what is also interesting is how he criticizes the state for being prepared and him speaking from the heart and off the cuff. But you have to wonder, given this verdict, if maybe he had a more cohesive argument and maybe a more cohesive defense strategy, maybe that would have served him better. Now, having said that, the place where Dorel Brooks really focused his attention was on intent. After all, six counts of first-degree

intentional homicide. And Brooks argued that he had no intent to kill, or I should say that the driver had no intent to kill. They made reference to a rage. As if they were, or if this particular DA was right there, standing right there. As if this DA is a psychiatrist. I said to myself, with rage, what do you mean rage? How can you characterize that? How can you have the audacity to diagnose what someone's brain is?

Where is that? What it's thinking? Why it thinks the way it does? DA makes references to blocks of knowing being injured but then says it's intentional. You add that up with the supposed rage the supposed intent

to harm and kill. And it doesn't, it doesn't kick in until well within blocks. And maybe it's just me, but I would think if I was characterizing someone with this intent to kill and this, this rage and this anger, then why weren't people immediately harmed? Why was someone with intent to kill and rage try to alert people of their presence, repeatedly honked their horn? You heard a detective, if you recall,

testified that the vehicle that he observed was not only honking his horn, it was not speeding. So where does this rage kick in? Where is this insatiable intent to kill kick in? Okay, so first, isn't he basically admitting he's the driver? I know it gets confusing because he doesn't consent to the name Derell Brooks.

He doesn't consent that to be his name. It's part of the sovereign citizen type argument he makes. It gets a little jumbled and confusing. But basically when he's talking about mine, mindset and what the driver was thinking, it seems to me like he's basically conceding that he was driving, but he didn't mean for this to happen. And I'll tell you, I wondered if this would have given the jurors pause, because how can we really know what was in his head? Maybe it wasn't intentional. But prosecutor Sue Opper did a really powerful job rebutting that in her closing by saying,

you know how we know that this was intentional? Because he kept driving. He could have stopped at any point, including before he even got on the parade route, but he kept driving and he may have honked, but that doesn't give anyone a license to just mow down a bunch of people because they didn't move. There was another curious moment from his closing, and that is when Brooks suggested that maybe the SUV was defective. Which brings me to more information that I believe that you should have been privileged. And I'm sure that the prosecution will beg to differ.

But the fact that the matter is, the vehicle in question, make a model of 2010 for the escape the vehicle in question actually 2008 2009 and 2010 of that model was in fact recalled objection misstatement of the facts facts not in evidence was in fact was in fact recalled was in fact a class action lawsuit against Ford for those models for those model vehicles Sustain the journal disregard. Information that you should have been privy to, that you weren't allowed to be privy to.

Why? I don't know. That information, malfunctioning throttled bodies. Now, not only did he not present any evidence of this during the trial, that there was this class action lawsuit or a recall, he can't really argue it now. But even putting that aside, a state patrol inspector examined the SUV in question. He examined the brakes, the steering wheel, the gas pedals, the tires, and found that there was no mechanical issue that would have caused a malfunction, nothing that would have caused the driver to lose control of the car. So in other words,

the vehicle hit all of those people because of the driver and the driver alone. And in the end, what Brooks mainly did was appeal to the juror's empathy. So I go back to trying to wrap my head around everything that's happened in the last year. Praying for those families, praying for the people that tragically lost their life. Because that should not be lost either. The fact that there was lives lost. And all the emphasis has been put on the alleged defendant. And the people have been disregarded.

Makes me wonder, does the DA even care about those people? There's been prayers going up every day. It's been suffering on both sides. It's been threats, hate mail. because of the narratives that's been put out there, the misconceptions that have been put out there, the lies that have been put out there, lies that have caused my children not to be able to go to school,

to be bullied. for my mother to have to leave her home and stay at the hotel because she's afraid for her safety because she gets hate mail shoved through her her mailbox my nieces and nephews to fear for their safety now the judge could have chosen to actually stop this line of argument because it's not really relevant it doesn't matter what his family has gone through The jurors are not supposed to make a decision based on emotion or sympathy or anything like that. That doesn't affect the legal analysis, the legal determination when they match the elements to the crime. And to take that kind of shot at the prosecution, do they even care about these people?

Look, unless we get an opportunity to actually interview the jurors, you do have to wonder if Darrell-Brook's statements and his behavior during the course of this trial, did it turn the jury off in a way? And in the end, despite all of his efforts, the jury came back with their decision, guilty across the board. And what a message that was. And thanks, everybody, for joining us here on Sidebar. Please subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, wherever you get your podcast. I'm Jesse Weber. Speak to you next time. You can binge all episodes of this Law and Crime series, ad free right now on Wondery Plus.

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