FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — What he did was cold. Calculated. Purposeful, prosecutors said.
He is brain damaged, broken and mentally ill, defense lawyers said.
Before a packed courtroom filled with the families of 17 slain victims, spectators and news media, attorneys in the Parkland mass shooting trial made their final pleas for justice to a Broward jury: life in prison or death for confessed gunman Nikolas Cruz.
“It was a systematic massacre,” prosecutor Mike Satz said, arguing for the death penalty.
With every word, the veteran prosecutor reminded jurors not only of the horror that was inflicted on the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School campus on Feb. 14, 2018, but also of the immense amount of planning, premeditation and determination that it took to make it happen.
The level of detail is needed, legally, for prosecutors to convince jurors that Cruz deserves the death penalty. Jurors must be unanimous in their recommendation of death. Otherwise the defendant will be condemned to life in prison.
Defense lawyer Melisa McNeill stood in front of a table holding stacks of folders containing documents that have been introduced into evidence. As her closing argument began Tuesday afternoon, she sought to portray the defendant as a “vulnerable, mentally ill adult,” responsible for his actions but undeserving of death.
She repeatedly called him “Nikolas.” Sentencing him to life, not death, is “the right thing to do,” she said. “The state of Florida wants to put you in a place of hate, of anger and of vengeance. ... The law that we all live by tells us that we must not make decisions based on passion, emotion or anger.”
Cruz, uncharacteristically, sat in the courtroom Tuesday morning without the large-framed glasses he has been wearing throughout the trial. During closing arguments, he kept raising his hand to his head and taking deep breaths. He returned from a lunch break in the afternoon wearing the glasses again.
Defense lawyers, in a bid to elicit sympathy from the jury, had presented witnesses who said Cruz has suffered from brain damage since birth. It left him with limited mental capacity. His ability to plan — long term — and to fully appreciate the consequences of his actions, was inhibited. He’s guilty, defense lawyers admit. But Cruz was born “broken.”
Satz purposely sought to undermine that argument.
“Hate is not a mental disorder,” Satz told the jury.
Cruz, now 24, bought his AR-15-style rifle nearly a year before his deadly rampage, Satz said. He accumulated ammunition and the magazines to hold them. He bought a vest to hold the magazines, and attachments to make the weapon easier to handle. He researched previous mass shootings, including Aurora, Las Vegas and Columbine. He googled how long it would take police to respond to a school shooting.
“It was goal-directed,” Satz said. “It was calculated. It was purposeful.”
Satz did not dwell on any single murder. Cruz killed 17 people. Each was singled out separately, from the first, Gina Montalto in the first-floor hallway, to Peter Wang, gunned down outside the third-floor stairwell. “His head blew up like a watermelon,” Satz said. Without elaborating, he reminded jurors of the gruesome testimony, the graphic pictures and the blood-stained hallways of the school.
Lori Alhadeff, Broward school board member and mother of Stoneman Douglas victim Alyssa Alhadeff, was overcome with emotion as Satz described her death and had to leave the courtroom. The remaining victims’ families, some of whom have been here for all or most of the trial, sat stoically through the state’s presentation.
When Satz played surveillance video, it was with one instruction to the jury. “I just want you to see how tactical and purposeful his actions are,” he said.
It wasn’t necessary, McNeill countered. Jurors cannot help but remember the evidence or the testimony of the family members who poured their hearts out on the stand, eliciting tears even from the defense team. McNeill’s voice broke as she reminded jurors of their victim impact statements.
“What we did was show you who Nikolas Cruz is, not just what he did,” she said. “They have done everything they can to dehumanize Nikolas. They don’t even call him by his name.”
The prosecution’s argument ended at 11:25 a.m. with Satz reciting the names of the dead: Alyssa Alhadeff, 14; Scott Beigel, 35; Martin Duque Anguiano, 14; Nicholas Dworet, 17; Aaron Feis, 37; Jaime Guttenberg, 14; Christopher Hixon, 49; Luke Hoyer, 15; Cara Loughran, 14; Gina Montalto, 14; Joaquin Oliver, 17; Alaina Petty, 14; Meadow Pollack, 18; Helena Ramsay, 17; Alexander Schachter, 14; Carmen Schentrup, 16; and Peter Wang, 15.
Satz choked up at one point while reciting the names.
He then looked at the jurors and left them with these words: “The appropriate sentence for Nikolas Cruz is the death penalty.”
Cruz pleaded guilty to the massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School nearly a year ago, willing to accept a life sentence without putting Broward County through the spectacle of a trial when his guilt was never really in doubt.
Jurors will have to weigh death or life for each of the 17 murder counts to which Cruz pleaded guilty last October. If they recommend death, the ultimate decision falls in the hands of Broward Circuit Judge Elizabeth Scherer.
From the earliest days of the case, prosecutors had rebuffed defense overtures to close it once and for all by sentencing Cruz to life instead of seeking death.
Cruz decided the final fates of 17 people, prosecutors said. He will not get to decide his own.
———
(South Florida Sun Sentinel staff photojournalist Amy Beth Bennett contributed to this report.)
———
