FORT LAUERDALE — A juror who allegedly was a lone holdout and was accused of saying she would not help the death penalty for Nikolas Cruz despatched a handwritten letter to the decide to refute those people accusations.
The juror, who is from Pembroke Pines, informed Decide Elizabeth Scherer that she lived up to the terms of the oath of services she took.
“This allegation is untrue and I managed my oath to the court and I would be fair and unbiased,” the woman wrote. “The deliberations ended up pretty tense and some jurors became extremely sad after I mentioned that I would vote for lifetime.”
The jury spared Cruz, 24, from the dying penalty Thursday for killing 17 folks at Marjory Stoneman Douglas Substantial University in 2018, sending him to prison for the remainder of his lifestyle in a final decision that left quite a few people of the victims angered, baffled and in tears.
“This is crazy. All people is familiar with suitable? This is insane,” Chen Wang, cousin of capturing victim Peter Wang, explained at a information convention right after the jury’s determination was go through. “We will need justice.”
Cruz, 24, pleaded responsible a year back to murdering 14 college students and 3 staff customers, and wounding 17 some others, at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High Faculty on Feb. 14, 2018.
The three-thirty day period demo to decide irrespective of whether he really should be executed involved graphic films and pics from the massacre and its aftermath, heart-wrenching testimony from victims’ loved ones users and a tour of the continue to blood-spattered setting up. The jury rejected the dying penalty after deliberating for about seven several hours over two days.
His guide general public defender, Melisa McNeill, informed the jury all through her closing argument Tuesday that lifetime in jail would nonetheless be a terrible punishment and recommended that other prisoners may concentrate on him.
But that wasn’t plenty of for several family customers, who went right before tv cameras, just one by 1, to categorical their shock and anger at the jury’s choice. Some referred to as Cruz a “monster,” although other individuals cried.
