FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Justice is not free.
When the gunman who took 17 lives at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School decided to plead guilty, a victim’s father called it “one step closer to justice.”
But it was just a step. A formality, really, considering gunman Nikolas Cruz has never made even a pretense of innocence. Guilt was never the question, fate is. And answering that question will cost Florida taxpayers millions in money that would not have been spent had he been sentenced to life in prison for the senseless murders.
Some defense lawyers who are not associated with the case are willing to concede that saving money by dropping the death penalty is not a realistic option for the prosecution. “If they don’t seek death in this case, with this many victims killed the way they were, prosecutors could never seek another death penalty in Broward,” said attorney H. Dohn Williams. “I think that’s one of the driving forces behind this whole thing.”
The meter is constantly clicking.
Based on public records, the South Florida Sun Sentinel estimates it is costing at least $90,000 a month just to compensate the 10 lawyers, five on each side, who have made this case their top priority for more than four years (and their sole priority this year).
And that’s a bargain, said Williams, who is often appointed, at taxpayer expense, to represent clients who can’t afford their own lawyers. Defense lawyers on capital murder cases charge the state $25,000 a month each for their services, he said.
The next line item is the judge’s salary. Broward Circuit Judge Elizabeth Scherer’s caseload has been farmed out to her colleagues while she oversees the Parkland trial. Circuit judges, who are elected, earn $160,688 a year.
Between those salaries alone, it will cost taxpayers more than $1 million, some of which would not have been spent, most of which would have been spent elsewhere, counting just from the time Cruz entered his guilty plea last Oct. 20. Now add support staff, including clerks, bailiffs and Broward Sheriff’s deputies who must accompany Cruz to and from his cell at the Broward Main Jail (estimated at $50,000 a year). Then there are the deputies standing guard inside and outside the courtroom.
The $1 million estimate doesn’t account for dozens of dueling expert witnesses who were consulted to explore the defendant’s mental health history, or the time it took the legal teams on each side to interview those witnesses. Experts set different rates, often hundreds of dollars an hour, for their consultation, pretrial depositions and testimony.
Then there’s security, tighter for the Stoneman Douglas case than for any in recent memory — a metal detector was moved to the floor where the trial will be taking place, staffed by private security but closely watched by deputies stationed just a few yards away. A large warehouse-style room has been set aside for the anticipated media crush on significant trial days. A private security guard stands watch outside that room.
Taxpayers are on the hook for all of it.
Cruz’s lawyers at the Broward Public Defender’s Office had long offered to have the defendant plead guilty in exchange for a life sentence, sparing the community the emotional and financial expense of a trial.
But that, to the families of the victims and to prosecutors, would not be justice. Lead prosecutor Mike Satz, in rejecting the defense offer, has not wavered from the position that life or death for Cruz is a decision that belongs in the hands of a jury, not a bureaucrat, and certainly not the defendant.
“Regardless of your views on capital punishment, if you’re going to have it, it’s going to cost, a lot,” said Robert Dunham, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, which keeps track of national death penalty statistics without taking a position on whether capital punishment is good policy. “This case will cost millions of dollars extra. I don’t think anyone knows for sure how long the case is going to be. Every day raises the price tag.”
If the jury votes for death, the costs continue to climb. The defendant will be entitled to a Spencer hearing, a last-ditch effort by the defense to convince the judge to override the jury’s recommendation and sentence Cruz to life instead of death.
But if Cruz is sent to death row, it’s still not over. That just signals the beginning of the appeals process.
Florida inmates sentenced to death are eight times more likely to have their sentences overturned than be executed, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. Florida has handed down 1,234 death sentences since 1976. More than half, 795, were overturned (though some of them were re-tried and again sentenced to death). Another 26 were either exonerated or found not guilty at retrial. Executions have been carried out only 99 times.
It’s all but certain Cruz will not be the 100th. There are 24 inmates sent to death row from Broward County alone. There are 306 in total.
James Rose, the inmate who’s been on death row the longest, was 32 when he was sentenced to death by a Hillsborough County judge.
That was 45 years ago.
Cruz is 23.
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