1 year ago
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CNN —
[Breaking quality update, published astatine 9:40 a.m. ET]
The assemblage successful the decease punishment proceedings of Nikolas Cruz, 24, has reached a determination connected whether to condemnation the Parkland schoolhouse shooter to decease oregon beingness successful situation without the anticipation of parole.
The jury’s proposal is expected to beryllium work successful tribunal astatine 10:30 a.m. ET.
Cruz pleaded blameworthy to 17 counts of execution and 17 counts of attempted execution for the February 2018 shooting astatine Florida’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, successful which 14 students and 3 schoolhouse unit members were killed, and 17 others were injured.
Jurors indispensable beryllium unanimous to urge a decease condemnation nether Florida law, oregon Cruz volition person a condemnation of beingness successful prison. If they urge death, the eventual determination connected Cruz’s condemnation would spell to Broward Circuit Judge Elizabeth Scherer, who could take to either travel the jury’s guidance oregon condemnation the gunman, present 24, to beingness successful prison.
[Original story, published astatine 8:56 a.m. ET]
The 12-person assemblage tasked with recommending a decease condemnation oregon beingness successful situation for the Parkland, Florida, schoolhouse shooter volition beryllium allowed to examine the AR-15 he utilized successful the 2018 massacre arsenic jurors undertake their 2nd time of deliberations Thursday, the justice said.
The limb that Nikolas Cruz, present 24, used to termination 17 radical in the wide shooting astatine Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School would beryllium sent to the assemblage room, Broward Circuit Judge Elizabeth Scherer said Thursday morning, aft saying a time earlier that she couldn’t let it due to the fact that of “security reasons.”
After the sheet asked to spot the limb soon aft 5 p.m. Wednesday, Scherer indicated the Broward County Sheriff’s Department did not privation to instrumentality the unloaded, inoperable firearm backmost to the assemblage country astatine that time.
The contented was rectified by Thursday morning, however, with Scherer saying the assemblage would presumption the limb without its firing pin. The weapon would different look arsenic it did erstwhile Cruz utilized it, Scherer said. Neither broadside objected.
Cruz pleaded blameworthy past October to 17 counts of execution and 17 counts of attempted execution successful transportation with the – the deadliest astatine a US precocious school – and his proceedings proceeded straight to the sentencing signifier arsenic a result. Jurors indispensable determine whether to urge Cruz person the decease punishment – a determination that would request to beryllium unanimous – oregon beingness successful situation without the anticipation of parole.
To marque their decision, jurors indispensable measurement the aggravating factors and mitigating circumstances – reasons wherefore Cruz should oregon should not beryllium enactment to decease – presented by the prosecution and defence during trial.
The authorities argued Cruz’s determination to transportation retired the shooting was not lone particularly heinous oregon cruel, but premeditated and calculated and not, arsenic the defence contends, related to immoderate neurological oregon intelligence deficits. To exemplify their point, prosecutors elaborate Cruz’s thorough readying for the shooting, arsenic good arsenic comments helium made online expressing his tendency to perpetrate a wide killing.
In their case, the shooter’s defence attorneys said Cruz had neurodevelopmental disorders stemming from prenatal intoxicant exposure, and presented grounds and witnesses claiming his commencement parent had utilized drugs and drank intoxicant portion large with him. Cruz’s adoptive parent was not unfastened astir this information with aesculapian and intelligence wellness professionals oregon educators, preventing him from receiving the due interventions, the defence claimed.
The assemblage received instructions from Scherer successful tribunal Wednesday morning, astir six months aft assemblage enactment archetypal began. Opening statements for the sentencing proceedings began successful July.
Jurors are sequestered during deliberations.
If the jurors bash not unanimously urge Cruz get a decease sentence, helium volition beryllium sentenced to beingness successful situation without the anticipation of parole. If the assemblage does urge death, the last determination rests with Scherer, who could take to travel the proposal oregon condemnation Cruz to life.
To urge death, each 12 jurors indispensable hold connected respective things: First, that the authorities proved beyond a tenable uncertainty determination was astatine slightest 1 aggravating factor, and that the origin is capable to warrant a imaginable decease sentence.
The jurors would past request to unanimously hold that the aggravators outweigh the mitigating circumstances.
Finally, if the assemblage agrees to those things, they inactive would request to unanimously find that Cruz should beryllium enactment to death.
Jurors volition see these questions for each of the 17 execution counts. Cruz would service beingness successful situation if the assemblage cannot unanimously hold connected decease for immoderate of the counts.
The archetypal time of deliberations saw jurors asking for a readback of astatine slightest immoderate grounds from an adept who testified crossed aggregate days.
When Judge Scherer agreed to the readback, jurors were called backmost into the courtroom. A tribunal newsman past work the transverse introspection of Dr. Paul Connor, an adept connected fetal intoxicant spectrum upset (FASD), who testified for the defence that Cruz has the disorder, on with deficits successful IQ, centrifugal skills, enforcement functioning and representation – elements that would enactment the defense’s mitigators and a beingness sentence.
During the transverse introspection successful September, prosecutors pressed Connor connected his investigating of Cruz and questioned his appraisal of Cruz’s capabilities, peculiarly his visual-spatial skills. Lead authoritative Michael Satz pointed to a sharpshooter badge Cruz earned portion connected the Marjory Stoneman Douglas JROTC team, which required him to occurrence a pellet and deed progressively smaller targets from 10 meters away.
“Were you aware,” Satz asked Conner successful September, “that the suspect successful this lawsuit won a sharpshooter badge?”
“No,” Connor responded.
The assemblage besides initially asked to rehear the grounds of Dr. Robert Denney, a objective neuropsychologist who testified during the state’s rebuttal that Cruz does not conscionable the criteria for FASD, but does person anti-social property upset and borderline property disorder.
But aft rehearing Connor’s transverse examination, the assemblage decided it nary longer needed to rehear Denney’s testimony.
The jurors were erstwhile again excused to deliberate successful private.
In closing arguments Tuesday, prosecutors argued Cruz’s determination to perpetrate the shooting was deliberate and cautiously planned, portion Cruz’s defence attorneys offered grounds of a beingness of struggles astatine location and successful school.
“What helium wanted to do, what his program was and what helium did, was to execution children astatine schoolhouse and their caretakers,” Satz said Tuesday. “The due condemnation for Nikolas Cruz is the decease penalty,” helium concluded.
However, defence lawyer Melisa McNeill said Cruz “is a encephalon damaged, broken, mentally sick person, done nary responsibility of his own.” She pointed to the defense’s claim that Cruz’s parent used drugs and drank alcohol portion his parent was large with him, saying helium was “poisoned” successful her womb.
“And successful a civilized humane society, bash we termination encephalon damaged, mentally ill, breached people?” McNeill asked Tuesday. “Do we? I anticipation not.”
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