In 2018, a gunman murdered 17 people at a South Florida high school. He has now been sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Last year, the gunman, who is identified as 24-year-old Nikolas Cruz. plead guilty to 17 counts of murder and 17 counts of attempted murder for the massacre.
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Parkland School Shooter Sentenced To Life In Prison Without Parole After Death Penalty Is Taken Off Table
In 2018, Cruz walked into Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida and robbed nearly 2 dozen people of their futures.
On Wednesday (November 2), after an agonizing and monthslong trial, Broward Circuit Judge Elizabeth Scherer formally sentenced Cruz to life in prison, without parole.
Just last month, the option for life in prison was suggested by the jury, after they voted against the punishment of the death penalty.
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It is reported that the state prosecutors argued for the death penalty for Cruz. The jury heard arguments from both the prosecutors and the defense attorneys, who argued against their client being put to death.
While the defense argued for life and cited the shooter’s mental or intellectual deficits stemmed from prenatal alcohol exposure, the prosecution wanted death, citing how heinous and cruel his “premeditated and calculated” crime was.
In Florida, a jury must unanimously recommend a death sentence, but three of the jurors had been persuaded to vote for life in prison.
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Subsequently, the jury’s recommendation angered many of the families of the 17 people he killed. Families were left heartbroken knowing that “this killer [will not] receive the worst punishment possible” — which in the state of Florida is the death penalty.
Annika Dworet, the mother of 17-year-old victim Nicholas Dworet, asked, “How much worse would the crime have to be to warrant the death penalty?”
Currently, the 2018 massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida remains the deadliest mass shooting at a U.S. high school.
And sadly, this mass shooting incident has not curbed the continued American gun violence epidemic.
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