Well, they had to consider and reach a verdict on each of 76 counts, so it's understandable that they took so long

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After a month-long trial, Waukesha killer convicted on all charges; jury deliberated 3 1/4 hours

A Wisconsin man was convicted Wednesday of killing six people when he drove his SUV through a Christmas parade last year, ending a trial in which he defended himself erratically and sometimes confrontationally.

The jury found Darrell Brooks guilty of six counts of first-degree intentional homicide. He faces a mandatory life sentence on each count.

The jury got the case Tuesday and deliberated for a total of 3 hours and 15 minutes into Wednesday morning before announcing they had reached a verdict.

Brooks drove his Ford Escape into the Christmas parade in Waukesha in suburban Milwaukee on Nov. 21 moments after fleeing a domestic disturbance with his ex-girlfriend, prosecutors said.

Six people were killed, including 8-year-old Jackson Sparks, who was marching in the parade with his baseball team, and three members of the Dancing Grannies, a group of grandmothers that dances in parades. Dozens of other people were hurt, some severely.

Many years ago, when I had just opened my solo law practice and was starving, a man came into my office late one Friday afternoon seeking legal representation in his ongoing trial. He’d been acting as his own lawyer, and after three days of watching the spectacle the presiding judge suspended the proceedings and told him he’d have to hire a lawyer before he’d be allowed back in court.

After hearing the details of the case: the man was suing his neighbor for defamation of character because his neighbor had charged him with striking him in the head six times with a hammer, when actually, our defamed plaintiff insisted, he’d hit him no more than three, “we’ll maybe four, but not six” times, every reputable lawyer in Greenwich who he’d approached turned him down, but one of them, attorney, later Judge Kevin Tierney, I believe, steered him my way, figuring that I had no money, and might take him on.

Which I did, and I spent the weekend studying and absorbing the file. When we met again the morning that the trial resumed I told him that his case was hopeless, and he should drop it. If he did, I said, I’d discount my fee and refund him half the $5,000 retainer he’d paid me. No soap, so into the courtroom we went.

I later told a friend that the experience felt like someone taking a 2X4 to my shins, working his way up my body too my neck and then back down. One of the many disasters came when the defense lawyer unfurled a 3-foot-long printout of my man’s previous criminal convictions for the jury to consider (I had seen the same document that weekend, and had told my client that he had no character left to defame, but I was unpersuasive).

Anyway, the trial finally ended and the jury retired to consider the case. “How long do you think they’ll take to reach a verdict?” my client asked. “Fifteen minutes”, I told him, “ unless they order out for coffee, in which, case, maybe twenty-five”. The jurors must have decided to skip the caffeine, because they came back in twelve minutes with a verdict for the defendant. My client was shocked, I kept the full retainer and didn’t bother billing him for more, although I should have, just to see his reaction.

I’n guessing that the Waukesha jury did order coffee.