The two-day sentencing hearing for the Florida school shooter begins Tuesday with the families of the 17 people he murdered in Parkland getting their chance after almost five years to address him directly about the devastation he brought to their lives.
After the families and the 17 people Nikolas Cruz wounded get their chance to speak, Circuit Judge Elizabeth Scherer on Wednesday will formally sentence him to life in prison without parole for his Feb. 14, 2018, massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. She has no other option as the jury in his recently concluded penalty trial could not unanimously agree that the 24-year-old former Stoneman Douglas student deserved a death sentence.
The families gave highly emotional statements during the trial, but were restricted about what they could tell jurors: They could only describe their loved ones and the toll the killings had on their lives. The wounded could only say what happened to them.
They were barred from addressing the gunman directly or saying anything about him — a violation would have risked a mistrial. And the jurors were told they couldn’t consider the family statements as aggravating factors as they weighed whether the gunman should die.
Now, the grieving and the scarred can speak directly to the gunman, if they choose.
Amy Beth Bennett/South Florida Sun Sentinel/Pool via Reuters
One who will not is Fred Guttenberg, whose 14-year-old daughter Jaime was shot by the gunman in the back as she tried to flee. He tweeted Tuesday that it won’t change anything if he addresses “the monster” who murdered his daughter, the defense team he believes “gave up its humanity” to defend him or the teacher he says faked heroism. He would thank the prosecutors and others who supported the families, but said that won’t make a difference either.
“The reality is that I will still visit Jaime at the cemetery and the monster’s fate will not change. It has already been decided. With that decision made, the monster is out of my head,” Guttenberg wrote. He said he will think of the gunman only two more times — when he watches him being sentenced and “when I read news reporting of the prison justice that he will eventually receive.”
The gunman’s attorneys say he is not expected to speak. He apologized in court last year after pleading guilty to the murders and attempted murders — but families told reporters they found the apology self-serving and aimed at garnering sympathy.
That plea set the stage for a three-month penalty trial that ended Oct. 13 with the jury voting 9-3 for a death sentence — jurors said those voting for life believed the gunman is mentally ill and should be spared. Under Florida law, a death sentence requires unanimity.
Following the trial, Ilan and Lori Alhadeff, whose 14-year-old daughter, Alyssa, was killed in the shooting, called the jury’s recommendation “a stain on this world that we live in.”
“I’m disgusted with our legal system. I’m disgusted with those jurors,” Ilan Alhadeff said. “That you can allow 17 dead and 17 others shot and wounded and not give the death penalty? What do we have the death penalty for?”
“The jurors let us down,” he said.
