The lead attorney for the young man responsible for the Parkland, Florida school massacre told jurors that while they have seen “things that will haunt them for the rest of their lives,” they must also understand what led the young man to slaughter 17 people. , before they decide whether he will be sentenced to death or life in prison without parole.
Nikolas Cruz committed an unspeakable and horrific act when he murdered 14 students and three employees at Parkland’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on Feb. 14, 2018, attorney Melisa McNeill admitted.
But he added that Cruz was a “damaged person” whose biological mother had abused alcohol and cocaine during her pregnancy.
“We must understand the person behind the crime,” McNeill said in his opening statement to the jury of seven men, five women and their 10 alternates.
Cruz, 23, pleaded guilty in October to 17 counts of aggravated murder and his trial is only to decide whether he is sentenced to death or life in prison without parole. It is the deadliest shooting in the United States whose perpetrator has been brought to trial. Nine other gunmen who killed at least 17 people died during or immediately following the shootings, either by suicide or by police shooting. The suspect in the 2019 murder of 23 people at a Walmart store in El Paso, Texas, is awaiting trial.
“I stand before you today in a space filled with overwhelming sadness, arduous pain, anger and trauma,” said McNeill, Assistant Public Defender.
McNeill had deferred his opening statement from the first day of the trial, July 18, until the start of the case by his team. The strategy is unusual and appears to be part of a larger plan to acknowledge the horror of Cruz’s massacre and try not to upset jurors should she deny it.
Instead, the defense seemed to focus on how Cruz over two decades turned into someone capable of coolly shooting others during a seven-minute rampage, from his mother’s drug and alcohol abuse during pregnancy to the stalking and alleged abuse sex he endured. He exhibited serious mental and emotional problems since preschool, where he was expelled for hurting other children.
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Associated Press writer Freida Frisaro in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, contributed to this report
