Friday, the attorneys for the Parkland school shooter filed a motion requesting the replacement of the judge supervising his punishment trial. The request follows an unusually intense interaction between the judge and the defense counsel on Wednesday, during which the judge accused the attorneys of lacking professionalism.
The motion claims that Circuit Judge Elizabeth Scherer’s behavior during Wednesday’s exchange shows “long-held” hatred toward the defense lawyers, which has “infected” the proceedings and would prevent their client from receiving a fair trial.
Attorneys for Nikolas Cruz, who pled guilty last year to killing 14 students and three staff members in a 2017 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida, initially stated they would bring 80 witnesses to defend him.
Instead, they rested at the start of Wednesday’s court session after having called only roughly 25 witnesses.
Melisa McNeill’s unexpected statement resulted in a contentious interaction with Scherer, who branded the choice made without her or the prosecution’s knowledge “the most uncalled for, unprofessional way to try a case.”
Scherer also accused McNeill of insulting her “throughout the entire trial” by removing his headphones, arguing with him, storming out, and purposefully arriving late if he disagreed with the judge’s judgments.
“Consequently, this has been long overdue,” she continued.
02:01 The defense rests in the Parkland school shooting trial, provoking a heated debate with the judge.
In a request filed on Friday, defense attorneys argued that Scherer’s words “have caused Mr. Cruz to legitimately fear that the court is biased against him and his attorneys and that he will not get a fair and impartial trial moving ahead.”
“The court has now demonstrated that its long-held hostility toward lead defense counsel has permeated this whole trial,” the motion said, noting that he accepted “many adverse rulings” despite believing he was receiving a fair trial.
“However, now that the court has made plain that its emotions toward defense counsel are longstanding and widespread, Mr. Cruz has a reasonable conviction that the court’s determinations have been influenced by its negative feelings, which are unrelated to the legal matter before the court,” the request stated.
The motion, which lists other other alleged instances of Scherer’s bias, requests that she be removed from the hearings and replaced by a new judge.
At the conclusion of the second month of the trial, it will be determined whether Cruz will be sentenced to death or life without parole.
His attorneys have argued that his birth mother’s alcoholism during pregnancy set him on a lifelong road of unstable, weird, and frequently violent behavior that culminated in the shootings. They also attempted to demonstrate that his adoptive mother, Lynda Cruz, became overwhelmed after her husband died when he was five years old and failed to provide him with proper medical care.
They are attempting to refute the prosecution’s case, which centered on his massacre while he stalked a three-story classroom building with an AR-15-style semiautomatic rifle for seven minutes. The chief prosecutor, Mike Satz, played security footage of the shooting and displayed the weapon used. Teachers and students testified to seeing the deaths of others.
Satz displayed grisly autopsy and crime scene photographs and led jurors to the blood-splattered and bullet-riddled fenced-in building. Parents and spouses expressed their grief and anger in tearful and passionate statements.
The prosecution stated that they will require more than a week to draft their counterclaim. The trial is tentatively slated to continue Sept. 27.