Delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic and legal wrangling, the sanctions-only trial is expected to last four months with the jury of seven men and five women exposed to horrific evidence throughout.  Jurors will then decide whether Cruz, 23, will be sentenced to death or life without the possibility of parole.
“Finally,” said Lori Alhadeff, who wants Cruz executed for killing her 14-year-old daughter Alyssa.  “I hope for swift action to hold him accountable.”
All of the victims’ parents and family members who have spoken publicly have said directly or indirectly that they want Cruz to be sentenced to death.
The former Stoneman Douglas student pleaded guilty in October to the Feb. 14, 2018, massacre and is only challenging his sentence.  Nine other US gunmen who fatally shot at least 17 people died during or shortly after their attacks by suicide or police shootings.  Cruz was arrested after leaving the school.  The suspect in the 2019 killing of 23 people at an El Paso, Texas, Walmart is awaiting trial.
Chief Prosecutor Mike Satz will present his side.  Satz, 80, spent 44 years as Broward County’s district attorney and was named chief prosecutor shortly after the shootings that killed 14 students and three staff members.  He did not seek a 12th term and left office in early 2021, but his successor, Harold Pryor, kept him on the case.
Craig Trocino, a law professor at the University of Miami, said Satz will likely emphasize the brutality of the shooting and the history of each lost victim.  The prosecution’s theme throughout the trial will be: “If any case deserves the death penalty, this is it,” he said.
“They’re going to want to talk about how horrific the crime was, how guilty Mr. Cruz is,” said Trocino, who worked on the defendants’ death penalty appeals before entering law school.
Cruz’s lead public defender, Melisa McNeill, recently told the court that she hasn’t decided whether her team will give an opening statement immediately after Satz or wait several weeks until it’s time to present its case.
Trossino said delaying the opening statement would be a dangerous and extremely rare defense strategy because it would allow the prosecution to have the only floor for half the trial.
He said Cruz’s lawyers will likely want to plant the seed in jurors’ minds that he is a young adult with lifelong emotional and psychological problems.  The goal would be to soften jurors’ emotions as the prosecution presented gruesome videos and photos of the shooting and its aftermath, harrowing testimony from injured survivors and tearful statements from victims’ family members.
Jurors will also tour the sealed three-story classroom building where the massacre occurred.  It remains bloodied and bullet-riddled, with deflated Valentine’s Day balloons and dead flowers strewn about.
“The defense will want to put a human face on Cruz,” Trosino said.  “They will want to show why life without the possibility of parole is punishment enough.”
During the trial, the prosecution is expected to present a general narrative of the history of Cruz’s threats, his planning and the ruthless nature of the shootings.  But they will also spend time on each individual murder as jurors ultimately vote on 17 possible death sentences, one for each victim.
Satz’s team will have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Cruz committed at least one aggravating circumstance defined by Florida law, but that shouldn’t be an issue.  These include murders that were particularly heinous or cruel.  was committed in a cold, calculated and premeditated manner; or was committed in the course of an act which created a great risk of death to many persons.
Cruz’s team can raise several mitigating factors that are also included in the statute.  Before the shooting, Cruz had no criminal history.  Lawyers can argue that he was under extreme mental or emotional disturbance and that his ability to appreciate the criminality of his behavior or to comply with the law was significantly impaired.
They will likely present evidence that:
— Cruz’s birth mother abused alcohol and drugs during pregnancy.  His lawyers say it damaged his brain and left him mentally disabled, with behavioral problems starting in preschool.
— A “trusted peer” sexually abused him.
— When Cruz was 5, his adopted father died of a heart attack in front of him, leaving his stepmother to raise him and his brother alone.
— His stepmother abused alcohol and died less than four months before the massacre.
— He was an immature 19 when the shootings took place.
For any death sentence, the jury must be unanimous or the sentence for that victim is life.  Jurors are told that in order to vote for death, the prosecution’s aggravating circumstances for that victim must, in their judgment, “weigh” the defense’s mitigating circumstances.  A jury may also vote for life on parole for Cruz.  During jury selection, panelists swore that they could vote for any proposal.
It is possible that Cruz will bring death to some victims and life to others, especially since he returned to some wounded victims and killed them with a second shot.  This may influence hesitant jurors on these counts.
“The prosecution only needs to return the jury (for death) to one,” Trosino said.