Non-Unanimous Florida Jury Sentences Nikolas Cruz to Life Without Parole for Parkland School Shootings

A non-unan­i­mous Florida jury has returned a ver­dict of life with­out parole for Nikolas Cruz, the teen offend­er con­vict­ed of killing 17 peo­ple in the February 14, 2018 shoot­ing at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School (pic­tured) in Parkland, Florida. The October 13, 2022 ver­dict, in which three jurors vot­ed to spare Cruz’s life, con­clud­ed a six-month sen­tenc­ing tri­al. Florida law, like that of near­ly every death-penal­ty state, requires a unan­i­mous jury ver­dict before a death sen­tence may be imposed.

Prosecutors had reject­ed a defense offer in 2019 for Cruz to plead guilty and be sen­tenced to 34 con­sec­u­tive life sen­tences. They remained adamant in their desire to pur­sue a death sen­tence in 2021 after Cruz plead­ed guilty to 17 counts of mur­der and 17 counts of attempted murder.

Jurors unan­i­mous­ly found that the state had proven aggra­vat­ing cir­cum­stances in each of the 17 counts of mur­der, but three jurors found that the mit­i­gat­ing evi­dence out­weighed the aggra­vat­ing evi­dence. The jury fore­man, Benjamin Thomas, told CBS Miami that one juror had strong­ly believed that Cruz should not be sen­tenced to death because he was men­tal­ly ill and that two oth­er jurors also vot­ed to spare his life. 

The out­come was rem­i­nis­cent of the August 2015 life ver­dict imposed by a Colorado death-penal­ty jury in the Aurora movie the­ater mass shoot­ing that killed 12 peo­ple and injured dozens more. In that case, James Holmes was sen­tenced to life in prison with­out the pos­si­bil­i­ty of parole after one juror stat­ed her firm oppo­si­tion to con­demn­ing Holmes because of his severe men­tal ill­ness and two oth­er jurors joined her in oppo­si­tion to the death penalty.

Jury selec­tion in the Parkland case was delayed twice, once because of a dis­pute over whether the judge should declare a mis­tri­al after refus­ing to allow the defense to ask fol­low up ques­tions of poten­tial jurors who ini­tial­ly indi­cat­ed their beliefs would pre­vent them from impos­ing the death penal­ty, and a sec­ond time because of an inci­dent in which sev­er­al poten­tial jurors appeared to threat­en the defendant.

During the sen­tenc­ing tri­al, Cruz’s defense team pre­sent­ed evi­dence that Cruz was born with a neu­rode­vel­op­men­tal dis­or­der result­ing from Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. Witnesses tes­ti­fied that his birth moth­er abused alco­hol and cocaine through­out her preg­nan­cy and that his adop­tive fam­i­ly ignored signs of devel­op­men­tal and behav­ioral prob­lems, pre­vent­ing him from get­ting appro­pri­ate treat­ment. In clos­ing argu­ments, defense attor­ney Melisa McNeill described Cruz as ​“a brain dam­aged, bro­ken, men­tal­ly ill per­son, through no fault of his own.” She asked the jury, ​“in a civ­i­lized humane soci­ety, do we kill brain dam­aged, men­tal­ly ill, bro­ken people?…I hope not.”

The lead pros­e­cu­tor, Michael J. Satz, the for­mer Broward County State Attorney who remained on the case after leav­ing elec­tive office, told the jury Cruz was a cold­heart­ed noto­ri­ety-seek­ing sociopath who planned the ram­page and car­ried out ​“a sys­tem­at­ic mas­sacre” in which he ​“hunt[ed] his vic­tims.” ​“The appro­pri­ate sen­tence for Nikolas Cruz is the death penal­ty,” he said.

The tri­al revealed dif­fer­ences of opin­ion among the vic­tims’ fam­i­lies and com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers about the appro­pri­ate pun­ish­ment for Cruz. Victims’ fam­i­ly mem­bers who were present at the ver­dict react­ed with shock and anger at the ver­dict. Ilhan Alhadeff, whose daugh­ter, Alyssa, was mur­dered, told the New York Times he was ​“dis­gust­ed” by the out­come and asked, if Cruz didn’t get a death sen­tence, ​“What do we have the death penal­ty for?” Robert Schentrup, whose sis­ter, Carmen, was killed, told the Washington Post that the tri­al had caused con­flict in his fam­i­ly. While his par­ents sup­port­ed a death sen­tence, Robert did not. He said his anger was direct­ed less at Cruz and more at the sys­temic fail­ures to pre­vent the shoot­ing. ​“I haven’t for­giv­en him,” Schentrup said. ​“It’s just … I am wrestling with how cul­pa­ble an indi­vid­ual can be when they are part of these much broad­er sys­tems that clear­ly affect us.”

The Rev. Sharon Risher, whose moth­er and cousins were among the vic­tims of the shoot­ings at the Mother Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, issued a state­ment offer­ing her ​“prayers and love to the fam­i­lies, co-vic­tims and sur­vivors of all of those killed and injured in the Parkland school shoot­ing.” She said that because of the death ver­dict in that case, ​“we are still suf­fer­ing in ways that could have been avoid­ed. … Rather than help­ing us heal, it keeps reopen­ing our wounds.”

She said, ​“Because I know this from my own still-fresh expe­ri­ence, I hope the fam­i­lies in Parkland can see this as a turn­ing point for them. Once the killer is sen­tenced, they can move toward heal­ing. We can nev­er get our loved ones back, but with­out a death sen­tence hang­ing over us we can remem­ber our loved ones for who they were before the hor­rif­ic epi­dem­ic of gun vio­lence touched their lives.”

State offi­cials had urged a death sen­tence for Cruz as the ​“worst of the worst.” Satz, a Democrat, had called Cruz ​“evil” and ​“worse than Ted Bundy.” Asked about the ver­dict at any unre­lat­ed news con­fer­ence, Republican Governor Rick DeSantis told the media that ​“mas­sacring those stu­dents with pre­med­i­ta­tion and utter dis­re­gard for basic human­i­ty” deserved the death penal­ty. ​“I just don’t think any­thing else is appro­pri­ate except a cap­i­tal sen­tence in this case,” he said. His Democratic Party oppo­nent, for­mer Florida Governor Charlie Crist, tweet­ed, ​“There are crimes for which the only just penal­ty is death. The Parkland fam­i­lies and com­mu­ni­ty deserved that degree of justice.” 

Jury fore­man Benjamin Thomas expressed sym­pa­thy for the vic­tims’ fam­i­lies, say­ing “[i]t hurts” to see their pain. ​“I feel bad for them, it hurts.” But he calm­ly reject­ed crit­i­cism that jus­tice had not been done. ​“It didn’t go the way I would’ve liked, or the way I vot­ed, but that’s how the jury sys­tem works,” Thomas said. ​“Everybody gets their vote. Everybody gets to decide.”

Cruz’s sen­tence is anoth­er exam­ple of jurors’ declin­ing appetite for the death penal­ty. In an October 11, 2022 inter­view with The Wall Street Journal, Death Penalty Information Center Executive Director Robert Dunham not­ed that ​“pub­lic atti­tudes … about the death penal­ty have shift­ed tremen­dous­ly” since death sen­tenc­ing peaked in the United States 25 years ago. ​“As a result, you are far less like­ly to be sen­tenced to death today than if the tri­al took place in the 1990s,” he said.