FORT LAUDERDALE – After a week-long break, the jury within the penalty trial of Parkland faculty gunman Nikolas Cruz bought again to work Monday.
It’s been almost a 12 months since Cruz pleaded responsible to murdering 17 college students and workers members at Parkland’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on Feb. 14, 2018. His trial is just to resolve whether or not he’s sentenced to demise or life with out parole.
During Monday morning’s continuing, attorneys argued over what a neuropsychologist may inform the jury about his findings on Cruz.
Defense attorneys try to persuade not less than one juror that Cruz was “damaged” from his organic mom’s drug and alcohol use, and ought to be sentenced to life in jail, with out the prospect for parole, as an alternative of the demise penalty. For the seven-man, five-woman jury to impose a demise sentence, the vote should be unanimous.
Paul Connor, a Seattle-area neuropsychologist, said medical data and testimony by prior witnesses present that Brenda Woodard drank and used cocaine all through a lot of her being pregnant earlier than Cruz’s start in 1998. Woodard, a Fort Lauderdale prostitute, gave up the infant instantly after to his adoptive mother and father, Lynda and Roger Cruz. Woodard died final 12 months.
Connor, testifying by Zoom, advised jurors that folks with fetal alcohol spectrum dysfunction present, at a younger age, issues with motor abilities, impulse management, socializing, and paying consideration – issues earlier protection testimony confirmed Cruz had.
Cruz’s preschool lecturers testified he could not use utensils or run with out falling. He was recognized with consideration deficit hyperactivity dysfunction as a younger little one and lecturers testified that he was extraordinarily anxious and had hassle making associates. He would have frequent outbursts in school and at dwelling, faculty data and testimony present. By center faculty, he was making threats.
Connor said he measured Cruz’s IQ at 83, which he said matches the marginally below-average intelligence many individuals with fetal alcohol points typically rating.
Lead prosecutor Mike Satz completed his major case final month. He performed safety movies of the capturing and confirmed the rifle Cruz used. Teachers and college students testified about watching others die. He confirmed graphic post-mortem and crime scene images and took jurors to the fenced-off constructing, which stays blood-stained and bullet-pocked. Parents and spouses gave tearful and offended statements about their loss.
In an try and counter that, assistant public defender Melisa McNeill and her group have made Cruz’s historical past their case’s centerpiece, hoping not less than one juror will vote for all times.
After the protection concludes its case within the coming weeks, the prosecution will current a rebuttal case earlier than the jury’s deliberations start.
