FORT LAUDERDALE — The prosecution invested 3 months telling jurors how Nikolas Cruz murdered 14 pupils and three staff users at a Florida high school four many years back. Now his lawyers will get their prospect to existing why they believe he did it, hoping to get him sentenced to everyday living without parole as an alternative of death.
Melisa McNeill, Cruz’s direct public defender, is envisioned to give her opening statement Monday, acquiring deferred its presentation from the start of the trial a thirty day period ago.
She and her staff will then begin laying out their 23-yr-outdated client’s daily life heritage: his birth mother’s abuse of liquor and cocaine during her pregnancy, primary to possible fetal liquor syndrome his serious mental and emotional troubles his alleged sexual abuse by a “dependable peer” the bullying he endured and his adoptive father’s demise when he was 5 and his adoptive mother’s 4 months ahead of his Feb. 14, 2018, assault at Parkland’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas Substantial University.
McNeill’s determination to hold off her opening statement appeared element of a broader method to not deny or reduce nearly anything prosecutors informed jurors about Cruz’s massacre — he pleaded guilty in Oct to 17 counts of 1st-degree murder. This demo is only to make your mind up his sentence the seven-male, 5 female jury will take into account no matter whether the prosecution’s aggravating instances “outweigh” the defense’s mitigating factors.
The protection is “heading to say, ‘Look, you noticed what took place — we are not going to argue that. It was horrible, that was awful, that was horrific, regardless of what adjectives you want to use,” said David S. Weinstein, a Miami defense lawyer and previous prosecutor. But then the defense will incorporate: “He in no way experienced a prospect and, since of that, his bad victims hardly ever experienced a chance.'”
This is the deadliest U.S. mass shooting to at any time reach demo. Nine other gunmen who killed at the very least 17 people died through or immediately following their shootings, either by suicide or law enforcement gunfire. The suspect in the 2019 slaying of 23 persons at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, is awaiting demo.
Throughout the prosecution’s situation, McNeill’s crew in no way cross-examined any teacher or student who witnessed the slayings and only experienced quick, delicate exchanges with a couple other witnesses.
They asked 1 trainer from a classroom in which no one was shot about the absence of a stability watch in the 3-story creating wherever the slayings occurred. When the gun retailer operator who bought Cruz the AR-15-style semiautomatic rifle employed in the killings testified, they questioned what Florida’s minimal age was in 2017 to acquire a rifle — 18 — and now — 21.
Neither they nor the prosecutors then questioned the retail outlet owner why the regulation was altered: Cruz was 19 when the capturing transpired and the Republican-led Legislature raised the age limit as section of a greater package of gun legislation enacted in reaction to the shootings.
Cruz’s youth will be element of his defense and even though Circuit Decide Elizabeth Scherer has barred the defense from presenting testimony that instantly casts blame on 3rd functions like school directors for not preventing the capturing, McNeill and her team will possible try to indirectly make such points.
To get Cruz a everyday living sentence, the protection will only have to persuade a person of the 12 jurors, but they will have to do it on all 17 counts, a single for every target. It is feasible, for instance, a hesitant juror may possibly be pushed to vote for demise on victims who surveillance video clip showed Cruz shot a number of occasions as they lay wounded and helpless.
The protection will be making an attempt to conquer the horrendous evidence that was laid out by the prosecution, capped by the jurors’ Aug. 4 go to to the fenced-off constructing that Cruz stalked for 7 minutes, firing about 150 shots down halls and into classrooms. The jurors noticed dried blood on floors and partitions, bullet holes in doorways and home windows and remnants of Valentine’s Day balloons, bouquets and cards.
Prosecutors also offered graphic surveillance videos of the massacre grotesque crime scene and autopsy shots from its aftermath psychological testimony from instructors and college students who witnessed other folks die and four days of tearful and offended statements from mom and dad, spouses and other relatives associates about the victims and how their loved one’s dying impacted their lives. Jurors also watched movie of Cruz calmly ordering a cherry and blue raspberry Icee minutes right after the taking pictures and, nine months later, attacking a jail guard.
It is not known how extensive the protection presentation will acquire, but they said in court docket not too long ago that it will past earlier Labor Day in two weeks. The prosecution will then get to present a rebuttal circumstance ahead of it goes to the jury.
