A jury recommended that the shooter who killed 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., be sentenced to life imprisonment with no possibility of parole.
Nikolas Cruz, 24, pleaded guilty last year to 17 counts of attempted murder and 17 counts of attempted murder. The question facing the jury now is whether Cruz will go to jail for the rest of his life or be sentenced to death.
It took the agreement of 12 jurors to impose the death penalty. The jury unanimously found that there had been aggravating factors in the murder Cruz had committed. But at least one jury concluded that for each murder, the aggravating circumstances were not superior to the mitigating circumstances in his case, and that the death penalty was therefore unworthy – resulting in a proposed life sentence.
In the reading of the verdict for 17 counts of murder lasting about an hour, the observer could hardly recognize what the jury had decided.
Some people in the courtroom – including the families of the victims – shook their heads unbelievably and stubbed tears when it became clear that the jury had offered Cruz a life sentence instead of death.
On the recommendation of the jury, the prosecutors requested that people who had been victims of Cruz be allowed to give testimony about the crime and what they considered to be appropriate sentences. The judge has agreed to the request, which will happen in the next few weeks.
The judge in the case, Judge around Elizabeth Scherer, couldn’t overturn the jury’s decision. Florida abolished death sentences by override of the judiciary in 2016.
https://www.facebook.com/reel/576281711005325/