Tag: parkland shooting

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — The trial to decide whether or not the gunman who attacked a Parkland, Florida, highschool is carried out started Monday with a prosecutor describing how Nikolas Cruz mowed down his 17 sufferers, returning to a few as they lay wounded to kill them with a 2nd volley.

Some oldsters wept as prosecutor Mike Satz described in his opening observation how Cruz killed their youngsters at Marjory Stoneman Douglas Top Faculty on Feb. 14, 2018. Others sat stoically, their fingers crossed over their chests. One lady who misplaced her daughter fled the court docket, sobbing and preserving tissue to her face.

Satz detailed how Cruz shot each and every of the 14 scholars and 3 personnel participants who died and one of the vital 17 who had been wounded. Some had been shot sitting at their desks, some as they fled, some as they lay wounded at the ground as Cruz methodically stalked thru a three-story construction for nearly seven mins.

Cruz, 23, pleaded in charge in October to homicide and tried homicide and is most effective contesting his sentence. The trial, which is anticipated to remaining 4 months, was once intended to start out in 2020, nevertheless it was once not on time through the COVID-19 pandemic and felony fights.

Satz referred to as the murders chilly, calculated, merciless and heinous, quoting the video Cruz, then 19, made 3 days sooner than the taking pictures.

“That is what the defendant stated: ‘Hi, my identify is Nik. I’m going to be the following faculty shooter of 2018. My purpose is a minimum of 20 other people with an AR-15 and a few tracer rounds. It’s going to be a large match, and whilst you see me at the information, you’ll know who I’m. You’re all going to die. Ah yeah, I will be able to’t wait,’” Satz stated.

The seven-man, five-woman jury, sponsored up through 10 alternates, will make a decision provided that Cruz is carried out or is sentenced to lifestyles with out parole.

It’s the country’s deadliest mass taking pictures to move sooner than a jury.

9 different gunmen who killed a minimum of 17 other people died all through or in an instant after their shootings, both through suicide or police gunfire. The suspect within the 2019 slaying of 23 other people at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, is anticipating trial.

It wasn’t transparent if someone was once provide within the court docket to toughen Cruz, who sat on the protection desk between his lawyers. He most commonly seemed down at a pad of paper with a pencil in his hand, however he didn’t seem to put in writing. He would occasionally glance as much as stare at Satz or the jury, peer on the target market or whisper to his attorneys.

After Satz spoke, Cruz’s attorneys introduced that they wouldn’t give their opening observation till it’s time to provide their case weeks from now. That may be a uncommon and dangerous technique as it offers Satz the one say sooner than jurors read about grisly proof and listen to testimony from survivors and the sufferers’ oldsters and spouses.

When lead defender Melisa McNeill offers her observation, she is going to most likely emphasize that Cruz is a tender grownup with lifelong emotional and mental issues who allegedly suffered from fetal alcohol syndrome and abuse.

The prosecutors’ first witness might be referred to as on Monday afternoon. They’ve no longer stated who that might be.

It’s the primary dying penalty trial for Circuit Pass judgement on Elizabeth Scherer. When jurors in the end get the case within the fall, they’re going to vote 17 instances, as soon as for each and every of the sufferers, on whether or not to counsel capital punishment.

Each and every vote will have to be unanimous. A non-unanimous vote for any one of the vital sufferers way Cruz’s sentence for that individual can be lifestyles in jail. The jurors are advised that to vote for the dying penalty, the annoying cases the prosecution has offered for the sufferer in query will have to, of their judgment, “outweigh” mitigating elements offered through the protection.

Irrespective of the proof, any juror can vote for lifestyles in jail out of mercy. Throughout jury variety, the panelists stated beneath oath that they’re in a position to balloting for both sentence.