WAUKESHA, Wis. — The Darrell Brooks trial is now in the hands of the jury. Brooks is accused of killing six people and injuring dozens of others last November during Waukesha’s Christmas parade.
Deliberations are set to begin and the judge has ordered the jury to be sequestered until they reach a verdict in each of the 76 counts.
Lori Sundt knows what it’s like to be a part of a sequestered jury.
"It became almost like an individual prison of our own,” she said.
Sundt was a juror in the Jeffrey Dahmer trial three decades ago and lived out of a hotel for nearly three weeks because the judge ordered jurors to be sequestered throughout the entire trial.
A much different situation is set to unfold in the Darrell Brooks case as jurors will only be sequestered during deliberations.
“So that could be two hours, four hours, but if it's overnight, they are going to find themselves asking bailiffs for their overnight needs, things that are going to be required for their personal hygiene,” Sundt said.
Criminal defense attorney Michael Hart says juries are rarely sequestered because judges typically only deem it necessary in cases that have drawn lots of publicity.
"In high profile cases where there is almost constant talk, this particular case I think is gavel-to-gavel coverage on network TV where people are being exposed to it, the fear is that the jury would be influenced by it, so the thinking is in sequestering a jury for deliberations, the court can shield the jury from any outside influence,” he said.
Hart says the biggest outside influences judges hope to avoid by sequestering a jury is media coverage along with jurors’ friends and family who may share their opinions.
Sequestration allows the jury to be cut off from the outside world and focus solely on the evidence presented in court and how the law applies to the facts of the case. But Hart says there are some disadvantages as well.
"They're costly,” he said. “It's less costly for deliberations, but again, you're taking people away from their homes, from their beds, from their comfort zones, people that they love and the fear is that they may rush to judgment and act quickly just to get home so that they can get out of staying away from their families and being locked up in a hotel."
While Sundt says being a sequestered juror was challenging on a personal level due to being out of communication with her family, she says it kept the jury pure.
"Overall, I think it was a good thing for the overall outcome of that trial because if I had been allowed to go home or be among friends, I would have certainly been questioned because of the gory details of that trial that came out and just having a freedom from all that publicity,” she said.
Hart says it’s more common for jurors to be sequestered just for deliberations than an entire trial simply due to the massive cost and the toll it takes on the jurors. It’s important to note, the rules of sequestration are up to the judge to decide.