The 12-person grand jury in Fort Lauderdale will not consider whether Cruz is guilty in the case, since the October mass shooter killed 17 people at his former school, Marjory Stoneman Douglas HS, on Feb. 14, 2018. Instead, the jury — which took nearly three months to select — will deliberate whether Cruz should be sentenced to death or life in prison without parole. Only one juror must oppose the death penalty for Cruz to be sentenced to the lesser term of life in prison. A jury will decide whether Parkland shooter Nikolas Cruz will receive the death penalty or life in prison. Cruz, 23, had previously made offers to plead guilty in exchange for avoiding the death penalty, but prosecutors rejected the proposed deals. The case has been delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic, prosecutors’ request for more time to interview mental health experts expected to testify on Cruz’s behalf — and the arduous jury selection process that whittled the panel down from a 1,000-person pool. Cruz pleaded guilty to avoid the death penalty, but prosecutors continued to reject the deal.EPA A protective juror told the judge she had no time for civic duties because she is married and entertaining a “sugar daddy.” The jury was finalized late last month with seven men and five women selected, plus 10 alternates. Broward Circuit Judge Elizabeth Scherer earlier this month denied a bid by Cruz’s defense team to further delay the trial because of a nationwide “wave of emotion” in the wake of the shootings in Uvalde, Texas, and Buffalo, New York, that lawyers argued that they could influence. the jury and denying their client a fair trial, Fox News reported. Cruz — who was 19 at the time of the shooting — pleaded guilty to 17 counts of first-degree murder for fatally shooting 14 students and three staff members using an AR-15 semiautomatic rifle. Cruz’s trial comes just weeks after two of the deadliest mass shootings in US history. Cruz’s defense team plans to argue that he is mentally ill and intellectually disabled. He also pleaded guilty to 17 counts of attempted assault, one of the people injured in the massacre. In a separate case, he also attacked a Broward County jailer nine months after carrying out the mass shooting. “I’m very sorry for what I did and I have to live with it every day,” Cruz said during his plea hearing. His defense team is expected to argue that he is mentally ill and mentally handicapped. Jury selection in Cruz’s case took three months to complete.AP Prosecutors asked a judge to allow a range of evidence into the trial, including Cruz’s racist and homophobic Internet posts and his online searches for child pornography and animal cruelty. They argue that this evidence proves that while Cruz may suffer from behavioral disorders, he was not mentally incompetent or mentally impaired when he committed the murders. The death penalty trial — scheduled to last four to six months — comes after some of the deadliest shootings in U.S. history, including the May 24 shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde that left 19 children dead and two adults. May 14 Buffalo supermarket shootings leave 10 dead. The July 4th shooting in Highland Park, Illinois – where six were killed and dozens injured – marked the 309th mass shooting of 2022 in the US. With Post cables
