Florida school shooter’s AR-15 rifle shown to his jurors

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Jurors within the penalty trial of Florida college shooter Nikolas Cruz acquired their first view Monday of the AR-15-style rifle he used to homicide 17 college students and employees members 4 years in the past at Parkland’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas Excessive College, staring intently because it was carried to the entrance of the courtroom.

Lead prosecutor Mike Satz eliminated the black semi-automatic Smith & Wesson from a cardboard field and carried it to Broward sheriff’s Sgt. Gloria Crespo, who mentioned it was discovered on the touchdown of a third-floor stairwell. Video seen by jurors beforehand confirmed Cruz positioned it there together with the black shooter’s vest he had been sporting earlier than fleeing the college.

The protection objected to the weapon’s introduction, saying with out rationalization that it lacked relevance and was unfairly prejudicial. The protection additionally objected to Satz putting the gun on the ground behind him in simple view of the jurors as a substitute of putting it on an proof desk away from them. Circuit Choose Elizabeth Scherer rejected the objections.

David S. Weinstein, a Miami prison protection legal professional and former prosecutor who isn’t concerned within the case, mentioned the protection believes that since Cruz pleaded responsible, the gun and different proof reminiscent of surveillance video and crime scene pictures are now not related and serve to inflame the jurors’ feelings.

Prosecutors have efficiently argued that such proof is important to show the murders included a minimum of one aggravating issue reminiscent of being dedicated in a merciless or heinous method or throughout a criminal offense that endangered the lives of many individuals.

Crespo additionally testified that Cruz, then 19, had 5 gun magazines remaining within the vest, containing 160 complete bullets. He had fired greater than 100 pictures as he stalked the three-story constructing for seven minutes, firing down hallways and into school rooms. The previous Stoneman Douglas scholar, who had been expelled a 12 months earlier, wounded 17 along with the 14 college students and three employees members.

Inside a vest pocket, Cruz, now 23, additionally had a police identification card his late father had been issued by a New York division. Roger Cruz died when Nikolas Cruz was 5, succumbing to a coronary heart assault in entrance of him. Prosecutors didn’t say if Roger Cruz had been a police officer or if it had been another kind of ID.

The jurors additionally had been proven pictures Crespo took of the our bodies of 5 college students and a instructor who died on the third-floor, all with a number of wounds from being shot at shut vary. These weren’t proven to the gallery, the place a number of mother and father and relations sat. Final week, jurors noticed their first graphic crime scene and post-mortem pictures.

Earlier Monday, the seven-man and five-woman jury and their 10 alternates heard from Uber driver Laura Zecchini, whom Cruz employed to drive him to the college. She mentioned he appeared nervous through the 13-minute journey and was carrying a big black soft-sided carrying case. Cruz informed Zecchini he was going to his music lesson.

Cruz pleaded responsible in October to 17 counts of first-degree homicide, so the jury will solely resolve if he’s sentenced to demise or life with out parole.

His is the deadliest mass taking pictures in U.S. historical past to succeed in trial. 9 U.S. gunmen in addition to Cruz who killed a minimum of 17 folks died throughout or instantly after their shootings, both by suicide or police gunfire. The suspect in a tenth, the 2019 slaying of 23 folks at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, is awaiting trial.

When jurors ultimately get the case, in all probability in October or November, they are going to vote 17 instances, as soon as for every of the victims, on whether or not to advocate capital punishment.

For every demise sentence, the jury should be unanimous or the sentence for that sufferer is life. The jurors are informed that to vote for demise, the prosecution’s aggravating circumstances for that sufferer should, of their judgment, “outweigh” the protection’s mitigators. A juror can even vote for all times out of mercy for Cruz. Throughout jury choice, the panelists mentioned below oath that they’re able to voting for both sentence.

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Related Press author Freida Frisaro in Fort Lauderdale contributed to this report.