Jurors to start sentence deliberations as Parkland school shooter faces possible death penalty

The fate of the man who has admitted to one of the nation’s deadliest school shootings is in the hands of a jury. Lawyers for the prosecution and the defense made their closing arguments Tuesday in the penalty trial of Nikolas Cruz, who pleaded guilty last year to the Feb. 14, 2018, shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.

Starting Wednesday, the seven-man, five-woman jury will have to decide if the 24-year-old will get the death penalty or life without parole for killing 17 people in the attack, which wounded 17 others.

The jury, which will be sequestered, must be unanimous on at least one of the 17 counts for the admitted killer to get the death sentence.

The lead prosecutor of the Florida school shooter made his final push Tuesday morning to persuade jurors to sentence him to death, telling them during his closing argument that the 2018 attack that killed 17 people was cold, calculated and meticulously planned and deserving of execution.

Mike Satz said Cruz “was hunting his victims” as he stalked a three-story classroom building at Parkland’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School for seven minutes, firing into some victims at close range and returning to some wounded victims as they lay helpless “to finish them off.”

He pointed to Cruz’s internet writings and videos, where he talked about his murderous desires such as when he wrote, “No mercy, no questions, double tap. I am going to kill a … ton of people and children.”

“It is said that what one writes and says is a window into their soul,” Satz said as the three-month trial neared its conclusion. The killings, he said, “were unrelentlessly heinous, atrocious and cruel.”

The admitted killer, dressed in an off-white sweater, sat impassively during Satz’s presentation, occasionally exchanging notes with his attorneys. A large number of the victims’ parents, wives and family members packed the section of the courtroom reserved for them, watching Satz intently, many of them weeping. Just minutes earlier, they had greeted each other with smiles, handshakes and hugs.

Satz, who served as Broward County state attorney for 44 years before stepping down early last year, meticulously went through the murders, reminding the jurors in order of how the victims were slain and how Cruz looked some in the eye before he shot them multiple times.

“They all knew what was going on, what was going to happen,” Satz said.

He talked about the death of one 14-year-old girl. Cruz shot her and then went back to shoot her again, putting his gun against her chest.

“Right on her skin. She was shot four times and she died,” Satz said. He then noted a YouTube video, which jurors saw during the trial, in which Cruz said: “I don’t mind shooting a girl in the chest.”

“That’s exactly what he did,” Satz said.

His voice breaking, he concluded his two-hour presentation by reciting the names of the 17 victims, then saying that for their murders “the appropriate sentence for Nikolas Cruz is the death penalty.”

Prosecutors argued in the trial he suffers from antisocial personality disorder and knew what he was doing. They focused their case on the shooting itself, including taking the jury to the largely untouched high school campus to retrace his steps.

The jury also heard from the families of victims and from the shooter himself, via video of jailhouse interviews with a forensic psychiatrist and a neuropsychologist. He shared graphic details with the two experts, including about his preparations and memories of the massacre itself.

In her closing, defense attorney Melisa McNeill pleaded for her client’s life. McNeill said neither Cruz nor herself has ever denied what he did and that “he knew right from wrong and he chose wrong.” But she said the former Stoneman Douglas student is “a broken, brain-damaged, mentally ill young man,” doomed from conception by the heavy drinking and drug use of his birth mother during pregnancy. She argued for a sentence of life without parole, assuring them he will never walk free again.

“It’s the right thing to do. Mercy is what makes us civilized. Giving mercy to Nikolas will say more about who you are than it will ever say about him,” McNeill told the jury.

She told them in her closing he was mentally ill and has a neurodevelopmental disorder. During the trial’s months of testimony, the defense has argued the shooter suffered from fetal alcohol spectrum disorder because his birth mother drank heavily during pregnancy. He was adopted at birth by a couple who later also adopted his half-brother. Witnesses, including his half-sister, testified to his birth mother’s substance abuse and to his history of violent behavior.

“There is no time in our lives when we are more vulnerable to the will and the whims of another human being than when we are growing and developing in the wombs of our mothers,” McNeill said. 

Woodard “poisoned him in the womb. He was doomed in the womb.”

She said Cruz’s increasingly erratic personality left his widowed adoptive mother, Lynda Cruz, overwhelmed. He punched holes in walls when he lost video games, destroyed furniture and killed animals. Visitors described the home as “a war zone,” McNeill said.

“Look into your heart, look into your soul. The right thing here — not the popular thing — is a life sentence,” she said.

“You will never regret voting for life,” she told the jury. “You can show Nikolas Cruz all the things he did not show the 17 victims. You can show him the things he least deserves: compassion, grace and mercy.” 

The trial started in July after months of delays because of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Debbi Hixon, whose husband, athletic director Chris Hixon, was killed during the mass shooting, told CBS Miami ahead of Tuesday’s arguments she is glad the trial is “near an end.”

“Having a death sentence will bring some justice and send a message this is intolerable,” she said. 

Judge Elizabeth Scherer told jurors to pack a few days of clothing and whatever medications they may need to prepare for being sequestered and said she would give them further instructions on Wednesday.