Nikolas Cruz, the convicted Parkland school shooter, will find out his fate this week as a jury deliberates between the death sentence and life in prison.
Today, during the sentencing phase of the confessed murderer’s trial, Cruz’s defense attorneys, who are now 24 years old, will make their last statements.
Cruz admitted guilt to 17 charges of murder and 17 counts of attempted murder in connection with the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting on Valentine’s Day of 2018.
Cruz’s defense attorneys had maintained throughout the trial that his biological mother’s extensive drinking while she was pregnant caused him to have fetal alcohol spectrum disorder, which resulted in brain dysfunctions that caused him to behave erratically, culminating in the massacre.
This week, the jury will decide whether to inflict 17 individual sentences of life in prison or death. Juror agreement on each of the 17 charges is required in order to recommend the death punishment. Cruz would otherwise be given a life sentence without the chance of parole. The jury will begin deliberating on Wednesday.
Nikolas Cruz, the Florida school shooter, may have persuaded a judge to give him the death penalty.
Cruz had jailhouse interviews with two of the prosecution’s mental health specialists this year, according to footage aired last week during the punishment trial. He responded to their inquiries concerning his murder of 17 people at Parkland’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on February 14, 2018, in honest and sometimes gory detail. He discussed his preparation, his inspiration, and the shootings.
His remarks to Dr. Charles Scott, a forensic psychiatrist, and Robert Denney, a neuropsychologist, did not assist his case; nevertheless, it is impossible to tell what the 12 jurors are thinking or whether any are debating whether to vote for death or life without parole.
All of this, according to Miami defense lawyer and former prosecutor David S. Weinstein, who has been following the trial, “made Cruz himself maybe one of the state’s strongest witnesses.”
Prosecutors might have specialists evaluate Cruz since Cruz’s defense claims that his biological mother’s severe drinking throughout his pregnancy caused him brain damage.
He was questioned separately for many hours by Scott and Denney. Cruz was seated across from each of them, shackled, with a sweatshirt covering his chest. He sometimes requested a pen and paper so that he could illustrate his points with diagrams and drawings.
What will the jury learn from the interviews, is the question. A guy who is so hopelessly disturbed that he can’t be anything but crazy, or a cold-blooded murderer who was enraged and pleased about the murders? Professor of law at Nova Southeastern University, Bob Jarvis, stated