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On Wednesday, October 26, 2022, Darrell Brooks was found guilty on six counts of first-degree Intentional Homicide.
Brooks was arrested and charged after he drove his SUV into a crowd filled with Christmas parade attendees in Wisconsin on November 21, 2021, killing six and injuring several.
Brooks represented himself in court, where he countered everything that the judge said during his trial. He even declared himself a "sovereign citizen."
According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, sovereign citizens believe that they are "not under the jurisdiction of the federal government." Such people "consider themselves exempt from U.S. law."
When Darrell Brooks used this line of argument in court, Judge Jennifer Dorow said:
"I'm frankly not going to address these nonsense legal theories of yours. I'm muting you. They have been debunked. They are typical sovereign tactics that have no place in our judicial system."
What did Darrell Brooks do? Charges explored as Waukesha killer found guilty on all 76 counts
On November 21 last year, a car that Darrell Brooks was driving rammed into a Christmas crowd parade in Waukesha, Wisconsin, killing six people.
He was charged with six counts of Intentional Homicide, six counts of fatal Hit-and-Run, and 61 counts of First-Degree Recklessly Endangering safety. Added to this were two counts of jumping bail and another count of domestic battery.
On Wednesday, he was found guilty on all 76 charges against him.
During his trial, Darrell Brooks questioned the witnesses himself, asking them if they had read the license plate of the car that had plowed through the crowd. He also questioned whether anyone had heard the vehicle blowing its horn before the crash.
Fox6 reported that Brooks called into question every single state witness about their relationship with "the plaintiff" and asked them if they had ever met "the State of Wisconsin."
He maintained that his actions were not intentional.
Waukesha County District Attorney Susan Opper shot down Brooks' claims of the accident being unintentional. In her argument, she said:
"He reached speeds of approximately 30 mph. That’s intentional. He plowed through 68 different people. 68. How can you hit one and keep going? How can you hit two and keep going? His intent I do have to prove, and I submit without any doubt there’s overwhelming evidence that this was an intentional act by Darrell Brooks and an act of utter disregard for human life."
Darrell faces a mandatory sentence of life imprisonment for the convictions.
In brief, about sovereign citizens
The Southern Poverty Law Center describes sovereign citizens as follows:
"Sovereigns believe that the American government set up by the founding fathers, under a common-law legal system, was secretly replaced. They think the replacement government swapped common law for admiralty law...they stake their lives and livelihoods on the idea that U.S. judges and lawyers, who they believe are foreign agents, know about this hidden government takeover."
The origin of the concept of the sovereign citizen is racist in nature. Founded by William Potter Gale, these people were of the opinion that non-white people were not human and believed in the "power of the county” or county sheriffs.
