October date set for Waukesha parade deaths trial; jury could still be chosen from outside Waukesha Co.

WAUKESHA, Wis. (AP) A judge has set an October trial date for a Milwaukee man accused of driving his SUV into a Wisconsin Christmas parade last year, killing six people and injuring dozens. Waukesha County Circuit Judge Jennifer Darow during a hearing Friday scheduled Darrell Brooks Jr.’s trial to begin Oct. 3 and run through Oct. 28.

Darow also acknowledged she knows the father of the one of the people who died but pledged to be impartial. And she ordered prosecutors and defense attorneys to draft a questionnaire to gauge prospective jurors’ bias. Brooks’ attorneys filed a motion last month asking that the trial be moved or jurors be pulled from outside Waukesha County due to overwhelming publicity about the case.

(Another Waukesha County case, from the 1990’s, was decided by a jury from La Crosse County.  James Oswald and his son Ted were sent to prison after a shootout in 1994 which killed a Waukesha police captain.  The next year, the judge and attorneys in James Oswald’s trial came to La Crosse for a week to choose a jury, and the jurors went to Waukesha for the trial.)