Florida jury rejects death penalty for Parkland shooter, recommends life without parole

A jury in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, has asked that Nikolas Cruz be given life without parole for carrying out a deadly 2018 shooting at Marjory Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, that killed 17 people.

A jury in Fort Lauderdale has requested that gunman Nikolas Cruz be sentenced to life without parole for carrying out a 2018 mass shooting at a school in Florida.

The 12-member jury failed to reach a unanimous decision on a death penalty recommendation.

Nikolas Cruz pleaded guilty last year to killing 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in the town of Parkland.

The jury’s recommendation Thursday, coming after a monthslong trial to decide Nikolas Cruz’s fate, is not an official sentence; Broward Circuit Judge Elizabeth Scherer still is expected to issue the gunman’s formal sentence on November 1. Under Florida law, however, she cannot depart from the jury’s recommendation of life.

Families of the gunman’s victims bowed or shook their heads as the verdict forms for each of the 17 people he killed were read in court Thursday morning. The jury found the aggravating factors presented by state prosecutors did not outweigh the mitigating circumstances – aspects of Cruz’s life and upbringing his defense attorneys said warranted only a life sentence.

None of the jurors looked in the direction of the victims’ families as their verdicts were read, but instead looked down or straight ahead. Cruz – flanked by his attorneys, wearing a blue and gray sweater over a collared shirt and eyeglasses – sat expressionless, looking down at the table in front of him.

Prosecutors had asked the jury to sentence the gunman to death, arguing Cruz’s decision to carry out the shooting was not only especially heinous or cruel, but premeditated and calculated and not, as the defense contended, related to any neurological or intellectual deficits.

Killer had requested life without parole

Cruz, now 24-years-old, killed 14 students and three school staff members, as well as injuring 17 more people on February 14, 2018, saying he chose Valentine's Day to make it impossible for students to ever celebrate it again.

Cruz had been expelled from the school and was 19 at the time he carried out the crime.

Though defense attorneys agreed that the massacre had been both premeditated and heinous, they claimed the shooter had suffered life-long mental illness due to the fact that his mother had abused alcohol during her pregnancy with him.

Prosecutor Mike Satz rebutted the defense's argument that Cruz suffered a neurological disorder, pointing to the smooth way in which he handled and reloaded his weapon during the incident.

Cruz himself had requested that he be given life in prison without parole so that he could dedicate his life to helping others.

The sentencing trial included eyewitness testimony from survivors and graphic cellphone videos in which students could be heard screaming and crying as well as whispering to one another as they sought shelter while Cruz methodically carried out his rampage.

Victims' family members also delivered heart-wrenching testimony and jurors toured the school, its walls still splattered with blood.

Not only was the shooting one of the deadliest in US history, it is also the deadliest ever to go to trial. Nine other individuals have shot 17 or more people in killings in the US, however, they were all either killed by police or killed themselves before they could be arrested.

The perpetrator of a racially motivated attack that killed 23 people at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, in 2019, is currently awaiting trial.

Source: dw.com, Staff; CNN, Staff October 13, 2022

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