Judge in Parkland trial scraps two weeks of jury selection
The judge in the Parkland mass shooting trial pulled the plug on jury selection Monday and started over with four new panels of potential jurors to decide the fate of confessed killer Nikolas Cruz.
Broward Circuit Judge Elizabeth Scherer’s decision scrapped two weeks of work narrowing the field of jurors from more than 1,200 to over 200 people who will be told their services are no longer required, unless the judge changes her mind. She’s giving the defense until Wednesday to present their argument for keeping the previously screened jurors.
The defense is promising a vigorous debate about the judge’s willingness to strike the previously screened jurors before giving the defense a chance to research and present its position.
Scherer’s decision came in response to a prosecution argument holding that errors in the jury selection process would be grounds for appeal if Cruz were to be sentenced to death for the murders of 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in 2018.
But lead defense lawyer Melisa McNeill said Monday that the judge was making more mistakes instead of fixing those that have been pointed out. “We believe you are creating more error,” McNeill said, raising the possibility that the outcome of the trial would be overturned by an appeals court. “You will end up doing this again.”
The most recent mistake was the failure to send subpoenas to 11 improperly dismissed jurors who were supposed to appear on Monday morning. The 11, part of an April 5 panel, told Scherer that they could not “follow the law” in deciding the highly publicized, emotionally charged case.
Rather than allow attorneys on both sides to further question those jurors, Scherer immediately excused them, a decision she again defended on Monday. “I don’t believe it was an error,” she said. But both sides objected on April 5, raising the prospect of what all parties were calling a “mistrial.” In practice, it would have meant starting from scratch on the third day of jury selec
tion.
Scherer reached an agreement with attorneys to have the 11 jurors called back for further questioning on Monday. But days earlier, it became clear that none of the jurors had been notified about coming back to the courthouse. The judge blamed a “miscommunication” for the failure to summon the jurors.
“This is not harmless error,” prosecutor Carolyn McCann said on Monday, adding that “error has been embedded in these proceedings already.” McCann took the lead in arguing in favor of striking the panel. Starting jury selection from scratch is better than a retrial, she said.
McNeill also urged the judge to stop picking jurors until the question of what to do with the first two weeks of work is settled for good on Wednesday. Out of the first 180 jurors screened Monday morning and afternoon, about 55 were asked to come back for the second, more intense phase of questioning.
It was one of the most productive days since the start of jury selection.
But McNeill said the defense would not accept any juror selected Monday or today, setting up a showdown with the judge when the issue comes to a head on Wednesday.
Jury selection in other cases remains at the mercy of the Parkland trial. Scherer’s courtroom is getting first dibs on anyone who reports for jury duty. Judges presiding over other trials simply have to wait. Among those affected are Lauderhill Police Officer Jamar Lee, who is accused of shaking down a homeless woman for sexual favors in February 2020, and Jamel Demons, the rapper known as YNW Melly, whose imminent jury selection for a capital murder case that is likely to overlap with the Parkland case if Scherer stands by her decision to start from scratch.