Was threatened, says Parkland case juror

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Prosecutors of Florida school shooter Nikolas Cruz called for an investigation Friday after a juror said another panelist threatened her during the deliberations that ended with a life sentence for Cruz’s murder of 17 people four years ago at Parkland’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.

Prosecutor Carolyn McCann told Circuit Judge Elizabeth Scherer during a brief hearing that prosecutors are not trying to invalidate Thursday’s jury vote and reported the threat only for safety reasons and so the Broward County sheriff’s office can investigate.

In their written motion asking for the hearing, prosecutors said the juror told them another juror did something during deliberations that “she perceived to be a threat.”

McCann said they did not ask any further questions because they didn’t want to taint any investigation and the Broward state attorney’s office has no intention of getting involved further.

The information has been turned over to sheriff’s investigators, who will contact the juror.

Even if a threat was made to a juror, the jury’s decision cannot be overturned because of double jeopardy, Florida criminal defense attorneys Richard Escobar and David Weinstein said in interviews.

Scherer said two jurors tried to speak to her after Thursday’s decision was announced, she said, but she told them that wouldn’t be appropriate.

Scherer said a bailiff told her later one juror wanted to speak to her during Thursday’s reading of the decision. That juror did nothing obvious to indicate he wanted Scherer’s attention.

When the jurors were polled, he agreed the life sentence was the panel’s decision.

Jurors have told local TV stations that the final vote was 9- 3 for death. Under Florida law, a death sentence requires a unanimous vote.

That means Scherer will sentence Cruz to life without parole at a Nov. 1 hearing — a punishment whose announcement left many families of the victims angry.

Jury foreman Benjamin Thomas told local reporters that “it really came down to a specific [juror] that he [Cruz] was mentally ill.”

Cruz, 24, pleaded guilty last year to murdering 14 Stoneman Douglas students and three staff members, and wounding 17 others on Feb. 14, 2018.

The jurors pledged during the selection process that they could vote for a death sentence, but some parents wondered whether they were all being honest.

Juror Denise Cunha sent a short handwritten note to the judge Thursday defending her vote for a life sentence and denying she intended to vote that way before the trial began.

“The deliberations were very tense and some jurors became extremely unhappy once I mentioned that I would vote for life,” Cunha wrote.

She did not explain her vote. McCann said she is not the juror who reported the possible threat.

Thomas did not say whether that adamant life vote was Cunha’s.

(AP/South Florida Sun Sentinel/Amy Beth Bennett) Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooter Nikolas Cruz is escorted from the courtroom Friday following a hearing regarding possible jury misconduct during deliberations in the penalty phase of his trial at the Broward County Courthouse in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.