The prosecutor and defence lawyer for Florida school shooter Nikolas Cruz concurred in their closing arguments on Tuesday that his 2018 attack, which claimed the lives of 17, was horrific, but they disagreed on whether it was an evil deed deserving of death or one committed by a broken person deserving of a life sentence in prison.
Mike Satz, the lead prosecutor, and Melisa McNeill, the defence attorney, presented opposing perspectives to the 12 jurors regarding the motivations behind Cruz’s attack on Valentine’s Day at Parkland’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. Cruz, who is a sociopath in layman’s words, was motivated by an antisocial personality disorder, according to Satz. He should be executed because, for seven minutes, he walked a three-story school building, “seeking his victims.” He returned to the wounded victims as they lay helpless and “finished them off” with his semiautomatic weapon in AR-15 type.
Satz cited Cruz’s online writings and videos in which he expressed his intention to kill people, for example when he stated, “No mercy, no questions, double tap. I’m going to murder a lot of people, including kids. As the three-month trial came to an end, Satz remarked, “It is claimed that what one writes and says is a window into their soul. He described the killings as “constantly horrible, awful, and cruel.”
Cruz and McNeill, according to McNeill, have never denied what Cruz did, and “he understood right from wrong and he chose wrong,” she claimed. However, she said that the former Stoneman Douglas student was “a shattered, brain-damaged, mentally ill young guy,” destined from conception due to the biological mother’s frequent drinking and drug use. She advocated for a life sentence without the possibility of parole and promised them he would never be allowed to leave prison.
It’s morally correct to do so. What makes us civilised is mercy. Giving Nikolas a second chance will reveal more about you as a person than it would ever reveal about Nikolas, McNeill told the jurors. Cruz, 24, admitted culpability to the murders of 14 pupils, three staff members, and 17 other people a year ago. Only the jury’s verdict will be considered; the death penalty requires a unanimous decision. Jurors have the option of voting for the death penalty if they think that the defence’s mitigating circumstances, such as the birth mother’s drinking, outweigh the prosecution’s aggravating circumstances, such as the multiple fatalities and the planning. In an act of kindness for Cruz, they can also vote for life.
On Wednesday, deliberations are anticipated to start. Cruz remained motionless throughout the presentations while wearing an off-white sweatshirt, occasionally exchanging notes with his lawyers. The courtroom was crowded with the parents, wives, and family members of the victims, many of whom sobbed during Satz’s testimony. The mother of a 14-year-old girl who had been killed left the courthouse before sobbing aloud in the hallway. The family had exchanged grins, handshakes, and hugs just moments earlier. Satz methodically reviewed the murders, reminding the jury of each victim’s cause of death and the fact that Cruz stared some of the victims in the eye before shooting them several times. According to Satz, “they all knew what was happening and what was about to happen.”
Satz exhibited pictures and played security videos of the incident, the same as he had done throughout the trial. He discussed the passing of a 14-year-old girl. Cruz fired at her, then returned to reload while pressing his rifle up on her chest. On her skin directly. She was shot four times and passed away, according to Satz. Then he referred to Cruz’s statement on YouTube, which the jury had access to throughout the trial: “I don’t mind shooting a girl in the chest.” Satz affirmed, “That’s exactly what he did. After listing the names of the victims and declaring that “the appropriate sentence for Nikolas Cruz is the death penalty” for their crimes, Satz completed his two-hour speech.
The jury has every right to be furious, McNeill said during her argument, “but how many times have we made decisions based simply on anger and regretted it?” She acknowledged the devastation Cruz perpetrated. She centred on her conviction that Brenda Woodard, his birth mother, drank excessively while she was pregnant, which caused him to have foetal alcohol spectrum disorder. She claimed that explains his peculiar, unsettling, and occasionally violent behaviour since he was 2 years old. When we are growing and developing in our mothers’ wombs, McNeill observed, “there is no point in our life when we are more exposed to the will and the whims of another human being.” He was “poisoned in the womb” by Woodard.
She claimed that Lynda Cruz, Cruz’s widowed adoptive mother, had become overwhelmed by Cruz’s increasingly unstable attitude. When he lost video games, he smashed furniture, murdered animals, and punched holes in walls. According to McNeill, guests described the house as “a battle zone.” She begged the jury to sentence Cruz to life in prison, urging them they shouldn’t worry about the families or the community’s reaction even if they are the only holdout. “There is no penalty you could ever give Nikolas Cruz that would ever make him suffer as much as those folks have and as much as they will continue to suffer every single day,” she added, gesturing toward the families of the victims. “That will not alter if Nikolas is given the death penalty.
Those 17 deceased persons will not be brought back by it. It will literally serve no purpose other than retribution to execute Nikolas, she claimed. Look into your heart, she said in place of that. Look deep within. Here, a life sentence is the appropriate course of action—not the popular one. The Cruz massacre ranks as the deadliest mass shooting ever tried in the US. In the US, nine additional gunmen who killed at least 17 people also committed themselves or were slain by police during or right after their attacks. The culprit in the murder of 23 people at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, in 2019 is still at large.
