The jury in the Parkland shooter trial has recommended life in prison without the possibility of parole for Nikolas Cruz, 24. Cruz pleaded guilty last year to 17 charges of premeditated murder and 17 counts of attempted murder.
Cruz killed 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, in 2018.
The jury deliberated for seven hours before rejecting the death penalty, much to the dismay of the families of the victims who were present in the courtroom.
The three-month trial included first-hand accounts, graphic video footage, and photos of the blood-spattered aftermath. During closing arguments Tuesday, lead prosecutor Mike Satz described the horrors of the tragic day to the jurors explaining how Cruz had returned to some of the students whom he had wounded to shoot them again and kill them.
Public defense lawyers for Cruz presented testimony from counselors and a doctor who said the defendant suffers from a fetal alcohol spectrum disorder—as Cruz’s birth mother abused both alcohol and cocaine while pregnant with Cruz—a condition that could affect his reasoning and behavior.
The aftermath of the verdict brought many of the families of those lost in the tragedy to tears.
“This is insane. Everyone knows right?” Chen Wang, 14-year-old shooting victim Peter Wang’s cousin, yelled during a news conference after the decision was read. “We need justice.”
Lori Alhadeff, whose 14-year-old daughter, Alyssa, was killed in Cruz’s rampage, expressed her anger, saying, “We are beyond disappointed with the outcome. … This should have been the death penalty, 100%. … I sent my daughter to school, and she was shot eight times. … I cannot understand. I just don’t understand.”
Gov. Ron DeSantis similarly denounced the sentence, “I think that if you have a death penalty at all, that that is a case, where you’re massacring those students, with premeditation and utter disregard for humanity, that you deserve the death penalty. … I just don’t think anything else is appropriate except a capital sentence in this case.”
To receive the death penalty, Florida law requires that a jury vote unanimously on at least one count. While the jury agreed there were aggravating factors to warrant a death sentence, one or more jurors reportedly found mitigating factors, such as untreated childhood issues.
As a result, Cruz will receive life without parole.
The presiding judge, Elizabeth Scherer, cannot overrule the jury’s decision as Florida abolished death sentences by judicial override in 2016.
The Marjory Stoneman Douglas mass shooting is the largest mass shooting to go to trial in the United States due to the fact in other attacks with more victims, the assailants either committed suicide or were shot and killed by police.