Death penalty or life in prison: Parkland killer awaits jury verdict

The twelve members of the jury began deliberations on Wednesday to determine what sentence they will recommend to the judge for Nicholas Cruzthe young perpetrator of the 2018 Florida high school massacre: life in prison or the death penalty.

The seven men and five women who make up the jury received this Wednesday from the magistrate elizabeth scherer the instructions to which they must abide during the time they are deliberating, which can take hours or days, and during which they will remain completely incommunicado.

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In fact, the members of the jury have gone to the fort lauderdale courtabout 40 kilometers north of Miami (Florida) and where the case is taking place, with changes of clothes and sleeping bags.

Crosswho faces 17 counts of murder after shooting with an assault rifle in a high school building Marjory Stoneman Douglas (MSD)pleaded guilty last year to murdering 14 students and 3 employees of the educational center.

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On the first day of deliberations, the jury asked to see the AR-15 rifle used by Cruz during the February 14, 2018 massacrebut Judge Scherer said the Broward County Sheriff’s Office, in charge of the gun, refused to release it to the jury for “security reasons.”

This upset prosecutor Michael Satz, who called it “absurd” that the jury cannot see the murder weapon.

“It is absolutely absurd. The Sheriff’s Office cannot control what goes back into the jury room.”the prosecutor protested.

However, before concluding the day on Wednesday, the magistrate said that the jury should be able to see the firearm, illegally purchased by Cruzno later than this Thursday morning when they resume their deliberations.

The jury began deliberations after some three months of court hearings, during which the team of prosecutors led by Satz requested the death penalty for Crossafter alleging that the young man planned everything meticulously in the face of the shooting he perpetrated on February 14, 2018 in what had been his school.

“It was calculated (…), it was intentional and it was a systematic massacre”the prosecutor underlined on Tuesday in his final arguments, in which he reviewed the fatal journey of Cross for the freshman building, even shooting through the windows of the doors that were closed and finishing off the students he had hit with his shots.

The defense, for its part, asks that the young man be sentenced with life imprisonment and urged jurors on Tuesday to look at the “soul” and “whole life” of Cross.

Defense attorney Melisa McNeill and her team deployed a strategy based on the damage suffered by Cruz while in the womb of his biological mother, an alcoholic and drug addictand summoned to court specialist doctors who spoke about fetal disorders suffered by children of drug-using mothers.

McNeill said in his closing arguments that Cruz “had no control over the crack that his mother smoked when he was inside her womb” and emphasized the fetal disorders that she may have suffered due to her mother’s addictions.

The defender reminded the jurors that they have “Cruz’s life in their hands.”

A unanimous vote in favor of the death penalty on just one of the 17 murder charges for which Cruz must answer would be enough for Judge Scherer to sentence him to death.

If so, the magistrate would set a date for the sentencing date, the day on which the lawyers for Cross be asked to invalidate the verdict of the jury and that Scherer probably ignores, after which the young man would be transferred to a state prison in Florida where he would wait for years to be executed, even with appeals in between.

If the jurors do not reach unanimity on any of the charges, Cruz will be sentenced to life in prison and Scherer will not be able to overturn the verdict. and could sentence him that very day to spend the rest of his life in a maximum security prison.

The parkland massacre unleashed a movement in favor of gun control in the US led by some students from the same MSD school, who took their claim to the US capital and some measures in Florida to prevent mass shootings and make it more difficult to access to weapons of war.

Source: Elcomercio

Ronald Payne

I, Ronald Payne, am a journalist and author who dedicated his life to telling the stories that need to be said. I have over 7 years of experience as a reporter and editor, covering everything from politics to business to crime.