Texas school massacre casts a shadow on Parkland trial
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — The Parkland mass shooting trial will not be delayed by the massacre at a Texas elementary school.
As jury selection in the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School case resumed Wednesday, the deaths of 21 victims in Texas on Tuesday cast a shadow over the penalty phase of the Florida proceedings.
Confessed Parkland school shooter Nikolas Cruz was late being brought to the courtroom.
Lawyers clashed over whether the latest news should be tackled directly or left for potential jurors to raise.
But stopping the trial was never on the table.
“There was a shooting yesterday. And there will be more,” Assistant State Attorney Carolyn Mccann said. “The defendant (Cruz) is not special. He is not unique. He is not extraordinary. This is a crime that has happened before and it will happen again. And we cannot break every time something terrible happens.”
Before potential jurors were questioned Wednesday, Cruz’s lead defense attorney, Melisa Mcneill, tried to convince Broward Circuit Judge Elizabeth Scherer that potential jurors should be asked directly about the Texas killings.
“There is no way these jurors haven’t been affected,” said Mcneill, who stopped several times to keep herself from crying.
The lawyers need to find out “if these jurors believe they are in a position to sit in a case like this,” she said. “We can’t ignore this.”
Scherer found a middle ground, allowing Mcneill to bring up the general subject of school shootings and leaving it for the potential jurors to raise the deadly incident that took place at Robb Elementary School in Texas.
Cruz, sitting at the defense table, did not look up. He appeared to be scribbling on a notepad.
An 18-year-old gunman entered the Texas school in the small town of Uvalde and slaughtered 19 students and two teachers in a fourth grade classroom, authorities there say.
It didn’t take long for jurors to bring it up.
“We all know what happened yesterday,” said one potential juror, a woman. “I send my kid to school expecting my kid to come back home.”
Two others, men, chimed in that the crime deserves the death penalty. All three said the Texas shooting had an effect on their views.
Cruz, 23, has pleaded guilty to 17 counts of firstdegree murder and 17 counts of attempted murder. The sentencing trial will determine whether he is sentenced to death or to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Tom Hoyer, whose son, Luke, was among the dead in Parkland, has been one of the few parents to regularly attend jury selection. He arrived Wednesday without his wife, who usually accompanies him.
“I’m in physical pain with what they’re going through,” Hoyer said, tearing up while talking about the Texas victims outside the courtroom. “It’s terrible. I’m so sorry it happened to them.”
Sitting in court day after day is difficult but necessary, he said.
“I cope by knowing that this is a chapter of my life that will soon be closed,” he said. “I don’t know what the outcome is going to be. But I’d like to see the chapter closed.”
Lawyers interviewed several potential jurors Wednesday. Nine will return next month for the third and final phase of jury selection.
So far, 36 potential jurors are cleared for phase three, meaning they are able to sit on a jury for about four months and did not express views on the death penalty that disqualify them from service.
The lawyers have pared 1,900 potential jurors to about 300 as they seek 12 panelists and eight alternates through a three-stage interview process.
The trial is expected to last through September.