Nikolas Cruz

Jury selection for the sentencing trial of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooter Nikolas Cruz began Monday. More than 1,500 candidates are expected ...

I don't know if 'relieved' is the right word, but I'm relieved that we're finally at a point where we can see where the trial is going to come. "For jury selection, I am glad that we're finally four years later, starting the process to be on the other side of what happens to this person," Hixon said. The trial was originally scheduled for February but was delayed after prosecutors asked for more time to interview mental health experts who will testify on Cruz's behalf, WTSP-TV reported.

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — Jury selection in the deadliest mass shooting ever to go to trial is about to begin. A judge, prosecutors and defense attorneys ...

To be selected, candidates must say they can judge Cruz fairly and vote for the death penalty if the evidence requires it. Court officials say 1,500 candidates or more could be screened over the next several weeks. Cruz has already pleaded guilty to the 2018 murders of 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.

Nikolas Cruz confessed to killing 17 people in 2018 at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. A jury will weigh the death penalty.

On the morning of the shooting, Cruz told them he didn't need a ride to school. He is a broken child," assistant public defender Melisa McNeill said in the days after the shooting. And that if I were to get a second chance, I will do everything in my power to try to help others," Cruz said after pleading guilty in October, one of the only times he spoke in the courtroom. A year later, she told deputies he had punched a wall when she took away the Xbox again. He was born Sept. 24, 1998, to a woman with a history of drug use. He had counselors in school and at home and he took medications, DCF records show. "It is impossible on a case like this to get a fair and impartial jury," he said. On the day of the massacre, Cruz, then 19, took an Uber to the school from a nearby home where he was living. He shot students in the hallways and through the window of classrooms with the AR-15. Since preschool, Cruz had a history of threatening, frightening, unusual and sometimes violent behavior, according to court records. He had been a student at the high school before being expelled 13 months before. It was was originally scheduled to start in 2020 but was delayed numerous times during the coronavirus pandemic.

Jury selection began Monday to determine whether Nikolas Cruz will be put to death for murdering 17 students and staff at a Parkland, Florida high school.

The parents and spouses of victims who have spoken publicly said they are in favor of Cruz’s execution. The suspect in the 2019 massacre of 23 at an El Paso, Texas, Walmart is still awaiting trial. “I just hope everyone remembers the victims,” he said. The prospective jurors are being asked if they can put aside any animosity toward Cruz and judge the case fairly. They will be brought back in several weeks later for individual questioning. He pleaded guilty in October to the Feb. 14, 2018, massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, meaning the jury will only decide if he receives a death sentence or life without parole.

On the first day of jury selection in the Parkland school shooting case, prospective jurors were asked about how their jobs and schedules would be impacted ...

A hyperbaric oxygen therapy operator who works in Miami said he was the only one who could run the chamber. With the trial falling during the summer, many prospective jurors pointed to pre-planned vacations that might take long chunks of their time. In October, Cruz pleaded guilty to murder and attempted murder, setting the stage for the “penalty phase” trial that is expected to last at least through September. Selecting a jury is tedious and difficult in any lengthy criminal case, let alone one for the worst school shooting in Florida history. Well away from the lawyers’ tables, a row of relatives of victims watched, behind them a few rows of reporters. Amid the laughter, the fear of missing out on wages and tips was a familiar one.

The freshman building at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High is expected to be demolished after the trial for Nikolas Cruz, who killed 17 people there.

The jurors “don’t need to see all of those horrible things,” defense lawyer Melisa McNeill told the judge. “There is no one video, photograph, poster, film, anything, that captures what the ... building is,” Broward prosecutor Carolyn McCann told the judge last week. The building has been locked but kept largely intact since the massacre on Valentine’s Day of 2018.

In the penalty phase for the Parkland murderer, jurors have only two choices: life in prison with no parole, or death.

And then, they must be willing to serve on a case that could run into September. Those who say they can be impartial will have to prove that by completing a rigorous questionnaire. Maybe I should have gone to trial and required the state to prove it.’ It will be too late at that time. It’s easy to say the death penalty is barbaric and has no place in a civilized society. This will be Florida’s highest-profile capital punishment case since Ted Bundy, exposing again the depths to which evil can fall in human beings. A lot of them want to see Cruz die.

Most of the 180 potential jurors queried Monday said they can't serve because of the hardship the murder trial's six-month calendar would impose.

If any of the 12 jurors opposed a death verdict, Cruz would be sentenced to life without the chance of parole. Nikolas Cruz was kicked out of the home following a violent tantrum. Aggravating factors must outweigh mitigating factors – such as mental illness  or sexual abuse – to impose the death penalty. He pleaded guilty in October to 17 counts of first-degree murder and 17 counts of attempted first-degree murders. A female candidate recited a series of reasons she is unable to serve before concluding with, "Oh, and I'm getting married at the end of the month." Another man told Scherer he was a server at Cheesecake Factory and wouldn't get paid if he didn't work.

FORT LAUDERDALE (CBSMiami) – More potential jurors are facing questions from prosecutors and defense attorneys in the sentencing trial of Parkland school ...

“This phase of the case is not a determination of whether or not he is innocent or guilty,” said Weinstein. “He’s already admitted that he is guilty of these crimes. To be selected, candidates must say they can judge Cruz fairly and vote for the death penalty if the evidence requires it. Yet another had met Cruz in 2016 on a group outing, while one woman was excused after saying she couldn’t serve on a jury because she needed to meet up with her “sugar daddy” every day. “He wanted to be infamous, right? “What may disqualify a potential juror, is if they say they hold a belief that in any case where someone has killed another individual, they should always be sentenced to death. So the fact that they know something about this case doesn’t automatically disqualify them.”

Jurors in Cruz's sentencing trial will be able to follow the path he took during his mass shooting of the Florida high school.

Because the account was public, she said, there was no "reasonable expectation of privacy" when he made his posts. The building where the shooting occurred was sealed off shortly afterward, with the dried blood, bullet holes and Valentine's Day gifts remaining as they were four years ago, the AP reported. Cruz, 23, pleaded guilty last October to 17 counts of murder and 17 counts of attempted murder in the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, where 17 people were killed.

Richard Moore said Tuesday he was at Broward County court to be there for Nikolas Cruz, who pleaded guilty to the premeditated murder of 17 people at ...

Moore was at the courthouse with a private security guard. “Nobody should face this alone,” Moore said adding, “I don’t approve of what Nick did. Nikolas Cruz arrives at Broward County court on Tuesday, the second day of jury selection.