Al Pacino has been in a few fake courtrooms, and he chews up scenery like no other actor. In “And Justice For All” (1979), Pacino screams:

“You’re out of order! You’re out of order! The whole trial is out of order!” 

He says that in response to judicial misconduct. But, it’s just a movie.

You can do that as a lawyer, if you want to end up poorer, and in jail, but no lawyer does that. Sure, you can challenge a judge, but you can’t do it more than once. Sometimes, not even once.

The closest I ever got to paying a sanction or going to jail for contempt was a hearing on a motion in a jurisdiction that I wasn’t familiar with. My motion was on “all fours,” meaning, other than the names, the details of the case I cited were the same as the case I was arguing. I couldn’t lose. I lost. When the judge said he was denying my post-trial motion, I just stared at him. Eventually, I said: “Your honor, with respect, did you actually read the motion?” In retrospect, even though the judge was dead wrong, I should have been sanctioned, but I wasn’t.

Lawyers at trial make stupid mistakes, and it’s usually silly errors like not knowing how to ask questions of your own witnesses.

Waukesha Parade murder trial defendant, Darrell Brook, besides being a few weeks away from going to prison for (hopefully) life, is an idiot. As I reported about a week ago, he decided that he would act as his own lawyer. He spent the majority of the trial in a separate room because he can’t keep his mouth shut. Now that the trial has moved into his defense, he should not be in the courtroom. Besides being a fool, he’s also either not very bright or really smart. I lean toward the former. His only hope of it being the latter is to create some hidden, genius appealable issues. Being dumb isn’t a defense or a reason for appeal.

Brooks interrupted his own witness and offered silly objections to his own witness. You can object to an answer of your own witness, but not to an answer that you simply don’t like. And you can’t engage in a commentary or make a speech, which is what Brooks constantly does.

Judge Dorow stopped Brooks and told him to cut out the narrations. He didn’t.

“Mr. Brooks, you are advised to stop with the commentary,” Judge Dorow ordered.

Brooks replied: “No, I’m gonna say what I wanna say”

When someone is acting as a lawyer (even as a pro se ), they have to act like a lawyer and that means understanding the rules and listening to a judge’s admonitions. Once Brooks told her that he was going to do what he wants, that was the signal to clear the courtroom of the jury and regain control.

Brooks was ordered to leave the courtroom, where he could participate remotely as he did in the prosecution’s case. None of this is lost on the jury, even though they don’t get to stay and hear the admonitions. They know Brooks is a moron and that he is disrupting the trial–because he doesn’t have a defense.

Brooks “of course it was gonna be overruled.” pic.twitter.com/BdRudhs9LM

— John Curtis  (@Johnmcurtis) October 18, 2022

If you’re curious about what happened to my motion, I appealed. The Court of Appeals admonished the trial judge and ordered the motion to be granted.

Brooks has a fool for a client – and the client is Brooks. He had no defense, so Brooks acting like a circus clown is no surprise. Eventually, and soon, the judge will read instructions to the jury; they will take time to look at the evidence and convict him on all charges.

Later, Brooks can watch reruns of “Law & Order” in prison.