On February 14th, 2018, Nikolas Cruz murdered 17 students and staff at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. Cruz now faces either the death penalty or life in prison without the possibility of parole after pleading guilting to 17 counts of murder and 17 counts of attempted murder.
This past Thursday, jurors, now in the sentencing phase of the trial, visited the scene of the massacre. Here is how CNN describes it:
Outside of room 1215, there is the dried blood of three students who were killed.
In room 1214, there are bullet marks next to opened laptops.
In room 1216, Alaina Petty’s blue folder remains on her desk.
In room 1230, there is a heart-shaped box of Valentine’s Day chocolates that never had the chance to get passed out.
In room 1232 are calculators next to notebooks with unfinished algebraic problems.
In room 1249, an unfinished chess game.
Following the visit, the victims’ families were given the opportunity to testify in court. The wife of athletic director Chris Hixon, who died trying to disarm the gunman, no longer feels at home in the house she and Chris built together. 17-year-old Helena Ramsay, remembered as a beautiful and graceful young woman, was killed on her father’s birthday. Peter Wang was killed just before Chinese New Year, making the family’s most treasured holiday now a death anniversary. The father of Max Schachter knows he will never be truly happy again. The mother of Meadow Pollack says she would have to rip out her shattered heart to explain the impact her daughter’s death has had. The family of Tom Hoyer now all too easily fits into a world set up for even numbers without their fifth member. Jaime Guttenberg’s father can’t recall whether he told Jaime just how much he loved her before rushing her off to school that day.
There was hardly a dry eye in the courtroom and Cruz’s attorneys contributed. Keith Swisher, a professor of legal ethics at the University of Arizona’s James E. Rogers College of Law, says it’s rare for attorneys to cry in the courtroom— especially “based on something the other side has said.” These same attorneys now must fight for Cruz’s life, arguing that he was plagued by mental illness and a difficult childhood and does not deserve to be executed.
This blog post is part of the CIMA Law Group blog. If you are located in Arizona and are seeking legal services, CIMA Law Group specializes in Immigration Law, Criminal Defense, Personal Injury, and Government Relations.
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