Editor's note: News agencies first announced that the jury unanimously recommended the death penalty for Parkland school shooter Nikolas Cruz. Subsequent reports explained that the Florida jury recommended life in prison on the initial counts. American Liberty News sincerely regrets this error.
A Florida jury has reached a decision in a school shooter's death penalty trial.
Nikolas Cruz pled guilty to 17 counts of murder and 17 counts of attempted murder after going on a shooting rampage at his former school, Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, on Feb. 14, 2018.
The three-month trial was to decide whether the gunman should receive life in prison or the death penalty.
The case was unique as most adult mass murderers either commit suicide or die confronting police or armed citizens.
The reading of the verdict was met with a mix of shock, bewilderment, disgust and anger by the parents of the victims.
For the defendant to have received the death penalty, the jury would have had to be unanimous in its decision.
NBC News further reports:
During closing arguments Tuesday, defense counsel Melisa McNeill told the jury before they started deliberations: “One day I promise you, you will ask yourself, did I make the right decision? You will never forget voting for life.”
Lead prosecutor Mike Satz concluded the state's closing arguments by emotionally reading each victim's name saying, “The appropriate sentence for Nikolas Cruz is the death penalty.”
The lengthy trial saw prosecutors call witnesses who recalled seeing students and staff members die and argue that the gunman had displayed racist and misogynistic behavior online prior to the massacre. Violent writings and drawings were found in his jail cell in the spring.
Meanwhile, the defense argued that his birth mother's alcohol abuse during her pregnancy led to his erratic and violent behavior.
This story is developing. Stay with American Liberty News for the latest updates.
READ NEXT: 5 Shot at High School Football Scrimmage >>
Justice served. It’s the only way this insanity will stop.
Justice would have better been served with the death penalty. Now the taxpayers are on the hook to maintain a worthless life in comfort.
The sentence is appropriate. I don’t care about his allegedly racist or misogynistic rants online–they are actually irrelevant, in my opinion. The fact that he went on a rampage and killed people is the only fact that matters.
So the people of Florida have to pay to keep this slime locked up through their tax dollars? Or worse, he will be paroled in ten to twenty years and able to murder again.
And I would bet that the people on the jury who opted out of the death penalty have zero problem with abortions. Most likely a bunch of hypocrites.
I CAN ONLY SAY THAT HE ESCAPED DEATH BY A JURY, BUT WHEN HIS TIME COMES TO BE JUDGED BY THE LORD, HE WILL GET HIS LAST AND FULLEST PUNISHMENT.
BOBBY ~!~
WHY WAS MY COMMENT DELETED I SAID ONLY THE TRUTH NOTHING BAD I KNOW YOU WILL NOT RESPOND
BOBBY ~!~
He should have received the death penalty. Now Florida taxpayers get to support him until he either dies or is patrolled in 10 years or so so he can go on another killing spree. Justice was not served.
I hope he lives a long, long life, behind bars. May he be in constant anquish.
I not only don’t like the penalty because of the cost involved, but I can see the bleeding hearts 15-20 years from now who will say “he’s not a threat to civilization” and parole him out. We’re no longer a gutsy people. Soft backbones.