Lawyer for Parkland gunman Nikolas Cruz attorney presents case to jury

Attorney for Parkland school shooter Nikolas Cruz presented her opening statement to the jury on Monday, pleading for Cruz’s life to be spared during the sentencing phase of his trial.

The jury will determine whether Cruz will be sentenced to death for shooting and murdering 14 students and three staff members at his former South Florida school, Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, on Feb. 14, 2018. The jury’s decision must be unanimous for death. fine. Cruz pleaded guilty last year to 17 counts of first-degree murder and 17 counts of attempted first-degree murder.

The defense attorney said in her opening statement that Cruz is responsible for the massacre, adding that “there is no defense against these crimes.”

However, she said, “We need to understand the person behind the crime.”

“Some people say that the crime itself is enough to inflict a punishment. You are not those people. Those people who said that the punishment can only be imposed on the basis of the crime were excused [during jury selection]She told the jurors. “Each one of you said that a life without the possibility of parole could be a severe enough punishment for those crimes.”

McNeill claimed that Cruz suffered lifelong developmental delays that could be traced back to: fetal alcohol spectrum disorders.

Cruz’s birth mother was a drug and alcohol addict who drank and used drugs up to six weeks before Cruz’s birth, McNeill said. Cruz was “poisoned in the womb” and his “brain was broken beyond repair,” she said.

Cruz was adopted at birth by Linda Cruz, a 48-year-old woman from Parkland. Cruz’s adoptive father was 62 years old, McNeill said.

Nikolas Cruz first saw a psychiatrist at age 3, and the doctor called him a defiant child, McNeill said.

The Broward County School Board classified Nikolas Cruz as “developmentally retarded in all areas” and said he “had a language disorder,” McNeill noted. The district classified him as an “ESE” student, or a child with special needs, she said.

“We don’t apologize for the heinous acts of damaged and injured people — we punish them,” McNeill said. “But we take their damage into account when imposing a penalty.”

The victims’ parents, including Fred Guttenberg and Max Schachter, sat in court as McNeill spoke.

In prosecutor Mike Satz’s opening statement last month, he described the shooting as a “planned, systematic … mass murder.”

Satz said: “Three days before the massacre, Cruz made a video that said, ‘My name is Nik. I’m going to be the next school shooter of 2018. My goal is at least 20 people with an AR-15 and a tracer. It’s going to be a round. big event and if you see me on the news you know who I am. You are all going to die. … I can’t wait.'”

The victims’ families took the stand earlier this month to make victim statements.

dr. Ilan Alhadeff, whose 14-year-old daughter Alyssa was one of the 17 dead, said a piece of his heart “was ripped out of my fucking chest.”

“I can see my friends, my neighbors, colleagues enjoying their daughters, all the normal milestones,” he said. “I can only watch videos or go to the cemetery to see my daughter.”

“For me it was yesterday,” said Ilan Alhadeff about the death of his daughter. “Alyssa will always be 14.”