Darrell Brooks

[AndyPandy]

Has this individual been / is being discussed on any of the US pages, if so does anyone have a link ?

He’s in Court for 6 counts of murder but is a Sovereign Citizen and does not consent, wants the Judges Oath of Office and has been trying his hardest to disrupt the Court Proceedings.

https://nypost.com/2022/10/06/alleged-w ... court/amp/

[noblepa]

Has this individual been / is being discussed on any of the US pages, if so does anyone have a link ?

He’s in Court for 6 counts of murder but is a Sovereign Citizen and does not consent, wants the Judges Oath of Office and has been trying his hardest to disrupt the Court Proceedings.

https://nypost.com/2022/10/06/alleged-w ... court/amp/

My wife likes to watch Court TV, which televises high-profile cases, including his. He is charged with driving his car through a Christmas parade in Waukesha, Wisconsin.

At the hearing in which he was asking permission to defend himself, the judge was explaining the ramifications of doing so, along with possible repercussions, and he kept talking over her, saying "I do not under stand". This is usually sovcit-speak for "I do not stand under the law". I turned to my wife and said "this guy's a sovereign citizen".

A couple of days later, in open court, he explicitly claimed that he was a sovcit and that the law doesn't apply to him.

He's not doing it right, though.

He has not noticed the fringe on the US flag in the courtroom. Everyone knows that that means that this court is an Admiralty Court, and has no jurisdiction over land-based crimes.

He also has not, AFAIK, made the proper distinction between the legal fiction DARREL BROOKS and the living man Darrell Brooks. He is the living man and can not be held accountable for the actions of the legal fiction.

Future sovcits who end up in court, when asked why they think this nonsense will work for them when it didn't work for Mr. Broooks, can point to those two mistakes and say it was his own fault; he didn't say all the magic words in exactly the right order and in exactly the right way.

[AndyPandy]

I keep watching some of the Court room shenanigans, I thought to begin with it was a fairly minor case until it kept coming back up, then realised the seriousness of the charges against him.

I agree he’s not a very convincing Sov Cit, I presume he’s never been on anyone’s radar before.

[AnOwlCalledSage]

UK pages?

[ArthurWankspittle]

I getting it moved.

[wserra]

Topic moved to appropriate forum. I'll have more to say about it later today. It's been a busy week.

[wserra]

Anyone who wishes to know more about what Brooks is charged with can just Google him. It's pretty horrific.

From the day he was arraigned in November of last year, the same assigned counsel have represented him. At one point he pleaded insanity, but then withdrew it after examinations by various mental health professionals, some of which exams were completed and others not. In late September, those assigned counsel moved to withdraw, informing the court that Brooks wished to be pro se. With jury selection scheduled for October 3, the court held a Faretta hearing on September 28 - very, very late in the game. The court allowed Brooks to represent himself.

The rest has been chaos. The court has repeatedly ordered that Brooks be removed from the courtroom - a particularly difficult thing to do with a pro se defendant. On Oct 3, the first day of voir dire, Brooks submits . . . well, for lack of a better term, this document. That piece of authentic frontier gibberish, along with something Brooks said in court the same day, appear to be the source of the reports that Brooks is a sov. He certainly ticks a large number of the sov boxes. For example, he demands that the prosecution:

• "verify the identity of the alleged defendant".
• "provide the enacting laws of the charging statutes".
• prove "subject matter, personam and territorral (sic) jurisdiction".
• "verify if the venue is a court of law or equity".
• verify where the prosecution "derives standing to file suit against a living man when it itself is fictitious . . . and no contract exist (sic)".
• provide proof of "the constitutional violations committed by the alleged defendant".
• "provide the 1099OID so that the faxes (sic) can be assessed otherwise a fraud upon the alleged defendant has occurred or in the alternative, close this account".
• "verify that the STATE OF WISCONSIN will be able to testify at trial . . . and be available for cross examination".
• agree that if they do not respond within "three (3) business days" they will dismiss with prejudice.

For the remainder of the past week, Brooks has been out of the courtroom more than in it. It is beyond me why the court (1) allowed Brooks to represent himself 5 days before the trial started, and (2) continues to allow it.

In any event, it's a foxhole conversion to sovrunty.

[RSVPini]

I don't understand how he plans to win his case. He obviously won't get anywhere with challenging jurisdiction. He seems to be attempting to make the point that Wisconsin doesn't exist and is not an injured party so there is no legal basis for him to be prosecuted. Also, he refuses to accept that his name is "Darrell Brooks", so maybe his ultimate argument is that it wasn't him that everyone saw driving the SUV and running over people and who was recorded on video committing the crime(s).

[wserra]

I don't understand how he plans to win his case.

That's OK. Neither does he.

[RSVPini]

I don't understand how he plans to win his case.

That's OK. Neither does he.

I would probably make a great standby counsel for him. I have absolutely no education in law and I'm really good at yelling, "Grounds!" whenever somebody objects to something I say.

[noblepa]

Speaking of standby counsel . . .

My wife likes to watch Court TV, which has been covering this case.

When he fired his public defender and was given permission to defend himself, the talking heads on CTV said something like "Wisconsin doesn't allow standby counsel".

My wife and I got into an argument about this. My contention was that WI won't PAY for a standby counsel or allow the PD's office to act as standby, but that, if a defendant wanted to hire his/her own attorney to sit there and quietly advise them, while the defendant did all the talking, the state couldn't really prohibit that. Could they? Wouldn't such a prohibition run dangerously close to violating a defendant's right to the counsel of their choice?

Would the counter argument be that, as the counsel of record, any evidence, testimony or statements presented to the court would be the responsibility of the attorney, even if the defendant was the one making the statement? As a licensed attorney, he/she could not advance frivolous arguments, such as sovcit claims. IOW, a licensed attorney could not sit idly by while the defendant makes stupid arguments that have no basis in law.

[ArthurWankspittle]

I think the above is generally correct, if he defends himself he may be able to hire counsel to advise him but he can't get the state to pay for it. He was questioned for hours about his choice to self represent and the issues it could cause. The judge had been very careful to ensure he has no case should he appeal claiming ineffective representation.

[Burnaby49]

We should be getting a verdict any minute;

https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/26/us/wauke ... index.html

It doesn't look good for the defendant when, in a multiple murder case, the jury takes just over a day to come to a verdict.

[AnOwlCalledSage]

It doesn't look good for the defendant when, in a multiple murder case. the jury takes just over a day to come to a verdict.

It wasn't.

However, it's still surprising how many major news outlets avoided reporting his Sovereign Citizen defences.

[AndyPandy]

So what’s the significance of the Subject Matter Jurisdiction, this is a Criminal Case in a Criminal Court but obviously, in US Sov Cit land it has a more significant meaning ?

[wserra]

From the way you phrase the issue, it's clear that you know the answer.

In U.S. federal courts, subject matter jurisdiction is rarely an issue in criminal cases. When it arises, it generally has to do with whether a particular defendant's conduct has a sufficient interstate nexus to support a federal prosecution. Courts almost always find that it does. In U.S. state courts - in one of which Brooks was tried - SMJ is almost never an issue, since states have plenary police power over crime that occurs within their borders.

So yes, like virtually everything else sovrun, the idea that objecting to SMJ can get you a dismissal is a myth.

[AndyPandy]

From the way you phrase the issue, it's clear that you know the answer.

In U.S. federal courts, subject matter jurisdiction is rarely an issue in criminal cases. When it arises, it generally has to do with whether a particular defendant's conduct has a sufficient interstate nexus to support a federal prosecution. Courts almost always find that it does. In U.S. state courts - in one of which Brooks was tried - SMJ is almost never an issue, since states have plenary police power over crime that occurs within their borders.

So yes, like virtually everything else sovrun, the idea that objecting to SMJ can get you a dismissal is a myth.

Not really, I’m a Brit and had to look it up as it pertains to the US Court System, so it’s the difference between a Federal Court Trial or a State one, so in the Brooks case the crimes were committed solely in Wisconsin, hence why they had Jurisdiction.

If they didn’t have jurisdiction then it would have been heard in a Federal Court, with the conclusion presumably very much the same

So just an attempt at Majik words then !

Brooks appeared to be reading from a script without much conviction or understood of what he was saying, being ‘advised’ by a Jailhouse Lawyer perhaps

[wserra]

so in the Brooks case the crimes were committed solely in Wisconsin, hence why they had Jurisdiction.

If they didn’t have jurisdiction then it would have been heard in a Federal Court

Not exactly, although this may well be more information than you were seeking.

If someone commits a crime under state law within the state, then the state has subject matter jurisdiction. Period, full stop. This is Brooks' situation. The feds may also have jurisdiction, if the same acts constitute a crime under federal law and the requisite interstate nexus is present. It's called "concurrent jurisdiction". So just the lack of state jurisdiction (which is all but impossible if the acts were committed within the state) does not imply the presence of federal jurisdiction. Indeed, in concurrent jurisdiction situations, even double jeopardy does not operate to bar a federal prosecution after a previous state conviction - a much criticized doctrine called "dual sovereignty". This is not to be confused with "dual sovrunty", which is two idiots planning the downfall of the legal system in a Denny's.

So just an attempt at Majik words then !

Absolutely, all of the above notwithstanding.

[AndyPandy]

so in the Brooks case the crimes were committed solely in Wisconsin, hence why they had Jurisdiction.

If they didn’t have jurisdiction then it would have been heard in a Federal Court

Not exactly, although this may well be more information than you were seeking.

If someone commits a crime under state law within the state, then the state has subject matter jurisdiction. Period, full stop. This is Brooks' situation. The feds may also have jurisdiction, if the same acts constitute a crime under federal law and the requisite interstate nexus is present. It's called "concurrent jurisdiction". So just the lack of state jurisdiction (which is all but impossible if the acts were committed within the state) does not imply the presence of federal jurisdiction. Indeed, in concurrent jurisdiction situations, even double jeopardy does not operate to bar a federal prosecution after a previous state conviction - a much criticized doctrine called "dual sovereignty". This is not to be confused with "dual sovrunty", which is two idiots planning the downfall of the legal system in a Denny's.

So this is what happened in the McMicheal’s case and the death of George Floyd, the defendants were tried for murder in the State Courts but for hate crimes in a Federal Court, I was curious at the time, seems a bit like overkill to me, when you’ve been sentenced to life imprisoned already but you’re tried again in a different court

[wserra]

seems a bit like overkill to me, when you’ve been sentenced to life imprisoned already but you’re tried again in a different court 🤷‍♀️

Indeed. In the words of a friend, a former Manhattan AUSA, "You have but one life to give for your country."