FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — The guilt of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooter was never really in question. His fate is.
Broward Circuit Judge Elizabeth Scherer will join prosecutors and defense lawyers Monday to start the process of picking jurors to decide that fate, answering the biggest remaining question about the tragedy: Will confessed murderer Nikolas Cruz be sentenced to life in prison or death?
Twelve jurors will be tasked with making that decision. Finding them could take two months or more.
A thousand potential jurors have been summoned to the Broward courthouse Monday. Scherer will call 60 at a time into the largest courtroom in the building for a round of questions. The same thing will happen Tuesday and Wednesday.
Massive pre-trial publicity, intense public scrutiny, and the highest possible stakes promise to take a toll on any plan for a speedy process.
A dozen jurors are needed, but up to 20 will be chosen, Scherer said. The extra jurors give the court the ability to continue with proceedings if a member of the jury gets sick or has to leave for any reason.
Monday will only kick off the first day of what officials dub “pre-selection,” a screening process designed to weed out those who certainly cannot serve. They include people who cannot afford to miss out on their jobs or family commitments, people who’ve consumed so much media coverage that they admit they have already made up their minds, and people with obvious conflicts of interest, such as friends of the 17 slain and 17 surviving victims of the mass shooting at the Parkland high school.
This won’t be the first time Cruz has come face to face with potential jurors. Before he pleaded guilty, the pre-selection process was underway for his trial on charges of assaulting a courthouse deputy. Several potential jurors burst into tears the moment they saw Cruz seated at the defense table.
Typically, fewer than half of summoned jurors show up to do their civic duty. Earlier this week, Scherer expressed hope to get through 240 of them each day, eliminating most from consideration. Attorneys told Scherer it was optimistic to expect to get through that many potential jurors.
The pre-selection process will run for three days a week through the end of May, with a break April 14-24.
Jurors who make it through the first phase can be expected to be sent home and told to wait, avoiding all media coverage of the case. They will return when the second phase starts, and that won’t happen until Scherer is confident the pool is large enough to pick 20 to hear the evidence.
The second phase is a more intensive round of questioning, examining jurors on everything from their personal connections to the criminal justice system to their feelings about the morality of the death penalty and their ability to put personal feelings aside to follow the law.
In ordinary cases, the pace of jury selection quickens during the second round. Prosecutors and defense lawyers argue with the judge over whether particular jurors should be excused. If the judge doesn’t agree to dismiss a potential juror, each side has the right to remove at least 10 jurors unilaterally.
For the defense, the goal is to find at least one juror who can look at the evidence and still vote for a sentence of life in prison. Under Florida law, a jury’s recommendation for death has to be unanimous.
“You have a lot of people who are philosophically opposed to the death penalty,” said defense lawyer Bruce Raticoff, who is not associated with the Cruz case. “They will be excluded, as will people who are too enthusiastic about imposing the death penalty. What you’re looking for as a defense attorney is people who are humanitarians, people who value human life and who don’t believe in an eye for an eye.”
It’s likely, according to the timetable discussed in court, that jurors who show up this week won’t find out they are on the final panel until sometime in May.
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