Florida | Lawyers say Parkland shooter's troubles started before birth, as jury considers death penalty
But for the past two weeks his lawyers have argued that decisions made by other people – including some before Cruz was born - affected his behavior the rest of his life.
While they concede these decisions don't excuse the murder of 17 people, they are seeking to underline their role in his actions. In this penalty phase of the Parkland shooting trial, they just need to persuade one member of the jury to vote for a life sentence, in order to save Cruz from the death penalty.
The jury had already heard every detail of what happened on Feb 14, 2018, at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, as the prosecution laid out its case. Now they’re hearing about everything that, the defense say, led to the shooting.
“Wounded and damaged people wound and damage other people. But we don't excuse the horrific acts of damaged and wounded people. We punish them," defense attorney Melisa McNeill told jurors. "But we take into consideration their damage when we impose sentence.”
Cruz's legal team started their argument by examining decisions made by his biological mother, Brenda Woodard. According to multiple defense witnesses, she used drugs and alcohol while pregnant, resulting in Cruz being diagnosed with fetal alcohol syndrome.
Caroline Deakins, who worked and used drugs with Woodard during that time, testified that she watched her use crack, cocaine, cannabis and alcohol while pregnant.
She didn’t want the baby, Deakins told the court. She then looked at Cruz from the witness stand. “Nikolas, I’m sorry, but that’s how it was,” she said.
Danielle Woodard, Cruz’s biological sister, also testified about their mother’s drug and alcohol use. She was almost 12 years old when Cruz was born and held him as a newborn baby moments after. Monday was the second time they had been in the same room together.
She testified to seeing addicts using crack and other drugs in her mother's home. Growing up, she also spent periods living with her grandmother, before eventually running away and being placed in foster care.
Her mother would beat drug screens while on probation by having her urinate into a container and hide it in her person, Woodard said. “She had an addiction. She always put that first,” she added.
Defense lawyers have been tracing Cruz's path from birth into high school. They questioned teachers and counselors who knew Cruz along the way.
Susan Hendler Lubar taught him in preschool. He was in a class for students with behavioral issues.
“Nikolas would push children, would try to scratch at them, would topple over furniture. He would stay away from other children and if they got too close to him he would basically pounce,” she said.
Lubar’s testimony that Cruz was aggressive and had trouble communicating was echoed by almost every witness that came after her. By middle school he was making threats and disturbing drawings in classrooms.
Cruz called girls and female teachers derogatory names, interrupted lessons and dashed from classrooms, according to reports shown in court during the testimony of Jessica Clark Fournoy.
Fournoy, a former special education counselor who worked with Cruz at Westglades Middle School, said that by eighth grade his conduct had gotten worse. Teachers repeatedly called campus security about his behavior, while school staff had to escort him to class and accompany him at lunch.
During the testimony of Dr. Brett Negin, a psychiatrist who treated Cruz, lawyers presented a letter from 2014, sent by school therapists in hopes to get his medication adjusted. Negin testified he never received the letter.
The letter, authored by two therapists at Cross Creek School, a campus attended by students with emotional and behavioral problems states that Cruz "continues to be aggressive and destructive with minimal provocation."
He destroyed a television after losing a video game, punched holes in walls and used sharp objects to cut up the furniture and carve holes in the bathroom. He had a hatchet that he used to chop a dead tree in the back yard, but his mother reported she could no longer find it.
Cruz shared at school “he dreams of killing others and is covered in blood.”
He was paranoid and “inappropriately” obsessed with guns and the military. According to testimony, he was also verbally aggressive toward his teachers and placed the blame on others for the problems he creates.
The defense went on to present testimony from friends of Lynda Cruz, who adopted the shooter at birth. She was hesitant to get her son treated for behavioral issues, they said.
Melisa McNeill, the defense lawyer, questioned Frederick Kravitz, who treated Cruz when he was 8 years old.
“Did you get the impression, based on Nikolas' behavior when you met with him and mom's responsiveness, that those interventions and those strategies were being used at home?" she asked.
"I don't think they were very much. I think she'd throw up her hands too readily," he replied. Kravitz added that she did not bring Cruz to treatment consistently.
Finai Browd, a close friend of Lynda Cruz, testified about Nikolas seeing his adoptive father, Roger, die. “As clear as sunshine he said, ‘No, Daddy is dead,’” Browd said she was told by his mother. Nikolas Cruz did not get grief counseling until four years after the 2004 death, according to testimony.
Browd testified that Lynda was "a great mom" who was " "overjoyed and ecstatic" when she adopted Nikolas. But by the time he was 4 years old, she noticed that he was not behaving normally.
“He would throw things. He would lay down and scream and cry, but not like a normal kid,” Browd said.
Lawyers for Cruz plan to call around 80 witnesses. The defense is presenting mitigating circumstances, as opposed to the prosecution's aggravating factors.
The jury has been instructed to only consider the defense's mitigation if they feel the state has met the criteria for proving aggravating factors. What weight jurors give to the defense's case is their own decision. If jurors think the mitigation outweighs the aggravators, then they are instructed to vote for a life sentence instead of the death penalty.
The sentencing trial is expected to last into October.
Source: wlrn.org, Staff, August 31, 2022
Parkland school shooter went on toads ‘killing spree,’ his ‘short fuse’ frightened mother, witnesses say
Capital defense attorney Casey Secor called Paul Gold, who lived in a house next door to Cruz’s family home in Parkland from 2008 to 2011. He said Lynda Cruz, told him she was scared of her son Nikolas Cruz and warned him not to allow his “angelic” appearance to fool him. Gold said Cruz’s adoptive mother padlocked the refrigerator and sometimes her sons “were going hungry.”
Gold said that after one of Cruz’s dogs died of toad poisoning he went on a “killing spree” to get rid of toads in the neighborhood. He also said Zachary Cruz had a problem with shoplifting and he had a disagreement with Lynda Cruz over her parenting style when his friend’s iPad vanished in 2012 and he suspected Zachary, who regularly bullied his brother, took it.
“The first time I met [Nikolas Cruz], I knew he needed some serious help,” Gold said adding he had such a “short fuse” that the consequences of his outbursts were visible throughout their home. “The walls there were punched. Doors there were broken.”
Gold said Nicholas Cruz was “obsessive” and he was “extremely distraught” during Lynda Cruz’s funeral in December 2017. Assistant State Attorney Jeff Marcus questioned Gold’s motivation for staying in touch with Nicholas Cruz while at Broward County’s main jail.
“On two occasions, you were trying to entice him to make a movie about his life,” Marcus said referring to records of jail calls on Aug. 19, 2021, and Aug. 25, 2021, in court.
“You want to make a movie about Nikolas Cruz and make money,” Marcus told Gold. “Correct?”
Gold, who admitted to owning a production company, said he just wanted to get “to the facts,” so Marcus asked if exploiting the “brutal murders” in Parkland to make “money” was wrong.
“Any exploitation would be terrible,” Gold said.
In an attempt to salvage his witness’s credibility, Secor asked Gold to talk about his contributions to Operation Underground Railroad, a nonprofit organization that claims to rescue victims of sex trafficking and exploitation. Gold said he donated to the cause and met one of the victims rescued.
Secor also asked for his opinion on whether or not Cruz should have been allowed to have a gun.
“No weapons. I mean, he would lose his temper,” Gold said.
Cruz’s temper often prompted Lynda Cruz to call 911 for help. The defense called two Broward Sheriff’s Office deputies who responded to intervene when she reported she had lost control and was afraid of Nikolas or Zachary Cruz.
Sgt. James Snell said he responded to a domestic disturbance on Sept. 26, 2011, at Cruz’s six-bedroom home at 6166 NW 80 Terr., in Parkland. Snell said he was a patrol deputy when dispatch received a call from Lynda Cruz who reported her “violent” son was “throwing items.”
Snell said he did not consider Cruz to be a threat and told Lynda Cruz that this was not a matter for BSO.
“He was very young at the time she called,” Snell said about Cruz. “He seemed a little detached ... he didn’t seem to really comprehend ... distracted, I guess.”
Deputy Gary Michalosky said he responded to Cruz’s home several times — mostly for Cruz’s brother Zachary. He said he saw a couple of holes on the wall that appeared to be from “someone taking out their anger.”
Michalosky said during a call in 2013 Cruz had barricaded himself in his room. Lynda Cruz told him she had hidden his Xbox video game console in the trunk of her car as a consequence of Cruz’s decision not to go to school.
“She was upset ... watching her son basically getting upset and started throwing things around the house,” Michalosky said adding it was clear to him the single mother was “in over her head.”
Michalosky said he handcuffed Cruz and walked him to his patrol car to have a one-on-one talk. He said Cruz wasn’t injured and he didn’t show him any emotions as they waited for the Henderson Mental Health Center’s youth emergency services.
“Maybe the calm after the storm,” Michalosky said adding Lynda Cruz told him Cruz suffered from developmental delays and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder.
Assistant Public Defender Melisa McNeill delivered her opening statement on Aug. 22 to attribute the 2018 Valentine’s Day massacre in Parkland to Cruz being “damaged.”
The defense has presented 19 witnesses in seven days, including Cruz’s biological half-sister and a recovering addict who was arrested with his biological mother for cocaine possession when she was pregnant with Cruz. The defense also called two psychiatrists and a clinical psychologist who treated Cruz for ADHD and oppositional defiance disorder.
During cross-examination, prosecutors sought to establish that Cruz’s mental health disorders and developmental delays were not “severe enough” to explain why at 19 he walked into Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School’s 1200 building with a loaded AR-15 to kill.
In October, Cruz pleaded guilty to 17 counts of murder and 17 counts of attempted murder.
The prosecutors who are seeking the death penalty for Cruz rested their case on Aug. 4, after calling 91 witnesses in 12 days, including the 17 survivors injured and the loved ones of the 17 killed who read victim impact statements. The defense team has over 80 witnesses, according to McNeill.
The defense needs only one of the 12 jurors to oppose the death sentence. Without a unanimous jury vote, Cruz will be sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Broward Circuit Judge Elizabeth Scherer said the court was in recess until 9 a.m. on Thursday.
Source: local10.com, Staff, August 31, 2022
🚩 | Report an error, an omission, a typo; suggest a story or a new angle to an existing story; submit a piece, a comment; recommend a resource; contact the webmaster, contact us: deathpenaltynews@gmail.com.
 |  |
Opposed to Capital Punishment? Help us keep this blog up and running! DONATE!
"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde