FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — For Florida school shooter Nikolas Cruz’s lead legal professional, his Valentine’s Day 2018 bloodbath of 17 individuals did not start when he stepped into a constructing at Parkland’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School and opened fireplace together with his AR-15-style semiautomatic rifle.
Public defender Melisa McNeill advised the jury throughout her opening assertion in Cruz’s penalty trial Monday that whereas they discovered in graphic and ugly element from prosecutors how he gunned down these 14 college students and three workers members, her crew’s job is inform them Cruz’s full story earlier than they vote whether or not to condemn him to demise or, as she hopes, life with out parole.
She mentioned nothing in that story will erase that the seven males, 5 ladies and 10 alternates have “seen things that will haunt us forever” or excuse what her 23-year-old consumer did. He pleaded responsible in October to 17 counts of first-degree homicide and the trial will solely determine his sentence.
“Everyone knows there is one person responsible for all that pain and all of that suffering, and that person is Nikolas Cruz,” she mentioned.
But, she mentioned, she hopes jurors will contemplate how Cruz was failed by his beginning and adoptive moms, Broward County school officers and others within the twenty years main as much as the taking pictures, stating that the legislation “never requires you to vote for death,” not even “in the worst case imaginable, and it’s arguable that this is the worst case imaginable.”
McNeill deferred her opening assertion from the trial’s first day of July 18 to the start of her crew’s case. For Cruz to be sentenced to demise, the jury have to be unanimous — if even one juror votes for all times, that can be his sentence.
Prosecutors concluded their case Aug. 4. There had been a two-week hiatus so some jurors might take care of private points and the legal professionals with some authorized ones.
The protection can be making an attempt to beat the horrendous proof that was laid out by lead prosecutor Mike Satz and his crew, capped by the jurors’ go to to the fenced-off constructing that Cruz stalked, firing about 150 photographs down halls and into school rooms. The jurors noticed dried blood on flooring and partitions, bullet holes in doorways and home windows and remnants of Valentine’s Day balloons, flowers and playing cards.
Prosecutors additionally introduced graphic surveillance movies of the bloodbath; ugly crime scene and post-mortem images from its aftermath; emotional testimony from lecturers and college students who witnessed others die; and 4 days of t earful and offended statements from dad and mom, spouses and different members of the family concerning the victims and the way their liked one’s demise affected their lives. Jurors additionally watched video of Cruz calmly ordering a cherry and blue raspberry Icee minutes after the taking pictures and, 9 months later, attacking a jail guard.
But McNeill mentioned that was not the entire story. She mentioned proof will present that his late beginning mom, Brenda Woodard, abused cocaine, alcohol and tobacco throughout her being pregnant, leaving him mind broken.
The protection’s first witness, Carolyn Deakins, testified Monday that she and Woodard had been Fort Lauderdale prostitutes collectively within the late Nineties and after they weren’t turning methods, they had been getting excessive on no matter they might get — crack cocaine, alcohol, marijuana — even when Woodard knew she was pregnant with Cruz.
Deakins mentioned she tried to get Woodard to cease abusing medicine throughout her being pregnant, “but she didn’t care” because the child was going up for adoption.
McNeill advised the jury the adoptive household, Roger and Linda Cruz, had been older — he was 62 and she or he was 48. But after a number of miscarriages and a failed adoption, Linda Cruz was determined for a youngster and gladly took Nikolas, regardless that she possible knew about Woodard’s drug and alcohol use.
Linda Cruz needed a good household, McNeill mentioned, and when it grew to become clear by age 2 that Nikolas was gradual and totally different from different kids, she refused to drop the facade. When her son was referred to a youngster psychiatrist when he was 3, she solely took him to that physician as soon as — regardless that the physician famous that he had extreme points.
At preschool, Cruz was frightened of different kids, McNeill mentioned, and a instructor positioned a sheet over a desk so he might go beneath it and have a non-public area the place he felt secure. She later made him a field with cutouts he might go into.
But he could not adapt. Pretending he was a tiger, he would chew, hit, kick and spit on different kids, McNeill mentioned.
Roger Cruz then died immediately simply earlier than Nikolas entered kindergarten, leaving his mom overwhelmed and deeply in debt — issues that by no means went away and affected how she dealt together with her son’s psychological issues, McNeill mentioned.
She refused to have him dedicated so she would not lose his Social Security verify. She turned to legislation enforcement and youngster emergency counseling companies to self-discipline Nikolas and his youthful brother Zachary, whom the Cruzes additionally adopted, calling them to her dwelling greater than 50 instances mixed.
Still, she purchased Cruz a BB gun, an air gun and, when he turned 18, his first firearm regardless that she was advised to not by psychological well being specialists. When she died 4 months earlier than the Stoneman Douglas taking pictures, her household declined to absorb Cruz and his brother, leaving them to fend for themselves.
And the faculties failed Cruz, McNeill mentioned, by eradicating him from structured packages the place he had some stability and placing him into the conventional chaos of center school and excessive school, the form of interactions he couldn’t deal with — even when he needed to cease carrying a backpack and be escorted to courses by safety guards after he was discovered with a knife on campus.
These will not be excuses, McNeill mentioned, however details she requested the jury to think about.
“You have to make a decision about whether another human being lives or dies,” McNeill mentioned. “They are part of Nikolas’ story and it’s my job to tell you that story.”