The seven-man, five-woman panel, backed by 10 deputies, will hear from lead prosecutor Mike Sachs, who is expected to highlight Cruz’s brutality as he stalked a three-story building into the classroom, firing his AR-15 semiautomatic rifle into the hallways. and in the classrooms. Cruz sometimes returned to wounded victims and killed them with a second volley of gunfire. Cruz, 23, pleaded guilty in October to 17 counts of first-degree murder. the only thing he’s challenging is the death penalty prosecutors are seeking. Jurors can only sentence him to death or life without parole for the Feb. 14, 2018, shooting. The former Stoneman Douglas student’s trial, expected to last about four months, was supposed to begin in 2020, but the pandemic COVID-19 and legal battles delayed her. Defense attorneys won’t say when they will deliver their opening statements: at the start of the trial or when they will begin presenting their case weeks from now. The latter strategy would be rare and dangerous because it would give the prosecution its only argument before jurors had to consider gruesome evidence and hear shocking testimony from shooting survivors and the victims’ parents and spouses. If lead defense attorney Melisa McNeill gives her statement, she will likely emphasize that Cruz is a young adult with lifelong emotional and psychological problems who allegedly suffered from fetal alcohol syndrome and abuse. The goal would be to temper jurors’ emotions as they hear the prosecution’s case, making them more open to considering the defense’s arguments later. The Parkland shooting is the deadliest trial in US history. Nine other gunmen who killed at least 17 people died during or shortly after their shootings, either by suicide or by police fire. The suspect in the 2019 killing of 23 people at an El Paso, Texas, Walmart is awaiting trial. After the opening, which is limited to 90 minutes each, the prosecution’s first witness will be called. They haven’t said who that will be. When the jury finally gets the case this fall, it will vote 17 times on whether to recommend the death penalty: one for each of the victims. Each vote must be unanimous. a unanimous vote for any of the victims means Cruz’s sentence for that person would be life in prison. Jurors are told that in order to vote for the death penalty, the aggravating circumstances presented by the prosecution for the victim in question must, in their judgment, “outweigh” the mitigating factors presented by the defense. Regardless of the evidence, any juror can vote for a life sentence out of mercy. During jury selection, panelists swore that they could vote for any proposal.
