The trial against Nikolas Cruz, the gunman admitted to the school massacre in Parkland, Florida, will begin Monday, and jurors will decide whether to sentence him to death or rot in prison.
The Fort Lauderdale 12-person jury will not assess whether Cruz is guilty of the case, as the mass shooter in October managed to kill 17 people at his former school, Marjory Stoneman Douglas HS, on February 14, 2018.
Instead, the jury, which took nearly three months to select, will deliberate whether Cruz should be sentenced to death or life imprisonment without parole. Only one member of the jury needs to oppose the death penalty for Cruz to receive the lower sentence of life imprisonment behind bars.
The jury will decide whether Parkland shooter Nikolas Cruz will receive the death penalty or life imprisonment.AP
Cruz, 23, had made previous offers to plead guilty in exchange for avoiding the death penalty, but prosecutors rejected the proposed agreements.
The case has been delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the request for longer prosecutors to interview mental health experts who are expected to testify on Cruz’s behalf, and due to the meticulous selection process of the jury that reduced the panel from a number of 1,000 people. pool of people.
Cruz pleaded guilty to avoid the death penalty, but prosecutors continued to reject the deal.
A protective jury told the judge she had no time for civic duty because she is married and has a “sugar daddy.”
The jury took place at the end of last month with seven men and five women selected, plus 10 alternates.
Broward Circuit Judge Elizabeth Scherer earlier this month denied an offer from Cruz’s defense team to further delay the trial for a “wave of emotions” across the country following the shootings of Uvalde, Texas, and Buffalo, NY, which attorneys argued could influence. the jury and deprive his client of a fair trial, Fox News reported.
Cruz, who was 19 at the time of the shooting, pleaded guilty to 17 counts of first-degree murder for shooting down 14 students and three staff members with an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle.
Cruz’s trial comes just weeks after two of the deadliest shootings in U.S. history. AP Cruz’s defense team plans to argue that he is mentally ill and has an intellectual disability.AP
He also pleaded guilty to 17 counts of attempted assault, one of each of the people injured in the killing.
In a separate case, he also managed to attack a Broward County Prison guard nine months after carrying out the mass shooting.
“I’m so sorry for what I did and I have to live with that every day,” Cruz said at the time of his hearing.
His defense team is expected to argue that he is mentally ill and intellectually disabled.
The selection of the jury for Cruz’s case took three months to complete.AP
Prosecutors have asked a judge to allow a wealth of evidence at trial, including Cruz’s racist and homophobic online posts and his online searches of child pornography and animal cruelty.
They claim that this evidence shows that while Cruz may suffer from conduct disorders, he was not mentally fit or intellectually fit when he carried out the murders.
The death penalty, which is expected to last four to six months, comes after some of the deadliest shootings in U.S. history, including the May 24 shooting at Robb d’Uvalde Elementary School. which left 19 children and two adults dead and on May 14 a shooting at the Buffalo supermarket that left 10 dead.
The July 4 shooting in Highland Park, Illinois, where six were killed and dozens more were injured, marked the 309th mass shooting in 2022 in the United States.
With post cables