FILE - Police stand near toppled chairs lining W. Main St. in downtown Waukesha, Wis., after an SUV drove into a parade of Christmas marchers, Sunday, Nov. 21, 2021. The trial of Darrell Brooks Jr. accused of driving his SUV through a Christmas parade in suburban Milwaukee, killing six people and wounding many more, was never going to be easy for the people who lived through it. Now it may be worse, after Brooks Jr. was allowed to dismiss his attorneys and represent himself.
Brooks, who has no legal training, has already shown himself to be disruptive and combative. What looked like a straightforward proceeding could quickly devolve into a painful slog for still-grieving witnesses, legal observers said. The dead included 8-year-old Jackson Sparks, who was marching in the parade with his baseball team, and four members of a group calling itself the Dancing Grannies, a group of grandmothers who dance in parades. Police captured Brooks after he abandoned the SUV and tried to get into a nearby house, the complaint said.
District Attorney Susan Opper has compiled more than 300 videos of the parade. Her witness list is 32 pages long; it includes Sparks' parents, as well as dozens of police officers and FBI agents. Brooks initially pleaded not guilty by reason of mental disease, which could have resulted in him being sentenced to a mental institution rather than prison. Hein September without explanation. Dorow said in court last week that psychologists found Brooks has a personality disorder but is mentally competent.
If Brooks gets so unruly that cross-examinations break down, Dorow could simply end the questioning, Turner said. That would give Brooks grounds for an appeal, he said, “but there’s going to be an appeal, no matter what.”