FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Nikolas Cruz had no expectation of privacy when he posted disturbing photos to his Instagram account before committing a massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, a judge ruled Monday.
The photos can be shown to the jury in the penalty phase of the trial next month, when jurors will decide whether he should be sentenced to death.
Cruz, 23, pleaded guilty last October to 17 counts of premeditated murder and 17 counts of attempted premeditated murder in the 2018 attack on the Parkland school. Because the state has refused to take possibility of a death sentence off the table, a jury must be seated and decide Cruz’s fate.
A jury vote for the death penalty must be unanimous. Jury selection for the penalty phase is scheduled to begin Feb. 21.
Cruz’s public defender Nawal Bashimam tried to persuade Judge Elizabeth Scherer that Cruz had an expectation of privacy. The judge didn’t buy the argument, saying Cruz’s accounts were public to begin with in 2018.
“How can you possibly have a reasonable expectation of privacy when the entire world can see it?” Scherer asked.
During the hearing Monday, teams of lawyers from the state and defense were hammering out a number of last-minute matters.
They heard testimony from a Broward Sheriff’s Office detective over misstatements in search warrant applications. In the applications, Cruz’s brother was misidentified as the victim’s brother rather than the suspect’s brother. The mistake was repeated when other investigators copied those errors in their search warrant applications.
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