Nikolas Cruz

The sentence caps an emotional three-month trial in which victim relatives and survivors recounted the 2018 Valentine's Day massacre in painful detail.

Fourteen students and three staff members were killed in the rampage at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on Valentine's Day in 2018.

Cruz's rampage is the deadliest mass shooting to go to trial in the U.S., according to The Associated Press. A previous version of this story said Cruz has been sentenced to life in prison. Late that day, the jury asked to see the murder weapon. "You now know that Nikolas is a brain-damaged, broken, mentally-ill person, through no fault of his own," Cruz's lawyer, Melissa McNeil, stated in closing arguments. Prosecutors had pushed for the death sentence. "That you can allow 17 dead and 17 others shot and wounded and not give the death penalty. Following the jury's recommendation, prosecutors requested that those who were victims of Cruz be allowed to present testimony about the crime and what they see as the appropriate sentence. The jury unanimously found that there had been aggravating factors in the murders Cruz committed. The question facing jurors now was whether Cruz would spend the rest of his life in prison or be sentenced to death. You set a precedent for the next mass killing, that nothing happens to you. He entered a school building through an unlocked side door and used an AR-15-style rifle to kill 14 students and three staff members, as well as wound 17 others. Cruz carried out the massacre on Valentine's Day in 2018.

A Florida jury on Thursday recommended Nikolas Cruz—the gunman who killed 17 students and teachers in the 2018 massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High ...

One YouTube video published by a user named Nikolas Cruz said “I’m going to be a professional school shooter.” The trial in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, opened in July, nine months after Cruz pleaded guilty, with former teachers and students, including some who were injured in the attack, [recounting](https://www.forbes.com/sites/brianbushard/2022/07/19/they-heard-something-they-never-heard-beforeparkland-shooting-victims-give-harrowing-testimony-at-sentencing-trial/?sh=5dffd9e37ed4) the attack as students ran for safety. Those disorders led to the shooting, she claimed, asking the jury “in a civilized society, do we kill brain damaged, mentally ill, broken people?” 14, 2018, with a semi-automatic military-style AR-15 rifle, with which he opened fire on his former classmates. Cruz, a former student at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, walked into the school on Feb. Social media posts, journal entries and YouTube videos released over the following days showed Cruz, a former U.S. A Florida jury on Thursday recommended Nikolas Cruz—the gunman who killed 17 students and teachers in the 2018 massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, be sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, after a three-month trial to determine whether Cruz faces a life sentence or the death penalty.

A gunman who shot dead 17 people in the deadliest ever school shooting to go to trial in the US has avoided the death penalty after a jury recommended he ...

and the thousands of people in that school and that community that are terrorised and traumatised every single day,” she said at a press conference on Thursday. Judge Scherer has set sentencing for November 1, to give victims a chance to express themselves before the formal sentence is entered. His adoptive mother also died — just four months before the massacre. Fourteen students and three teachers were killed in what was one of the deadliest and most merciless mass slaughters in the nation’s history. The jury found there were aggravating factors to warrant the death penalty for each count`, however, they also found mitigating factors. His defence team called several expert witnesses who argued that he likely suffered from foetal alcohol syndrome. They argued he deserved the death penalty for the “systematic murder” of 17 innocent people. Others shook their heads and wiped away tears as it became increasingly apparent that Cruz would be spared his life. I just don’t understand.” “What it says to me, what is says to my family, what it says to the other families is that his life meant more than the 17 that were murdered … “There’s no doubt about the fact that the verdict should have been the death penalty.” I cannot understand.

A non-unanimous Florida jury has returned a verdict of life without parole for Nikolas Cruz , the teen offender convicted of killing 17 people in the…

“As a result, you are far less likely to be sentenced to death today than if the trial took place in the 1990s,” he said. He wants the gunman to live.](https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/09/27/parkland-school-shooting-trial-death-penalty/), Washington Post, September 27, 2022. about the death penalty have shifted tremendously” since death sentencing peaked in the United States 25 years ago. He said his anger was directed less at Cruz and more at the systemic failures to prevent the shooting. In closing arguments, defense attorney Melisa McNeill described Cruz as “a brain damaged, broken, mentally ill person, through no fault of his own.” She asked the jury, “in a civilized humane society, do we kill brain damaged, mentally ill, broken people?…I hope not.” His Democratic Party opponent, former Florida Governor Charlie Crist, tweeted, “There are crimes for which the only just penalty is death. Victims’ family members who were present at the verdict reacted with shock and anger at the verdict. “I just don’t think anything else is appropriate except a capital sentence in this case,” he said. Prosecutors had rejected a defense offer in 2019 for Cruz to plead guilty and be sentenced to 34 consecutive life sentences. The trial revealed differences of opinion among the victims’ families and community members about the appropriate punishment for Cruz. The jury foreman, Benjamin Thomas, told Florida law, like that of nearly every death-penalty state, requires a unanimous jury verdict before a death sentence may be imposed.