Fla. shooting suspect faces possibility of execution

MIAMI — Prosecutors intend to seek the death penalty for the former student charged with killing 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School last month even though attorneys for Nikolas Cruz indicated he would plead guilty if his life was spared.

The prosecutors’ decision moved the state closer to a rare trial for someone charged in a mass shooting. It came one day before students nationwide were expected to stage walkouts to demand new gun-control measures.

Mr. Cruz, 19, is scheduled for formal arraignment Wednesday on a 34count indictment, including 17 first-degree murder charges. The office of Broward County State Attorney Michael Satz filed the formal notice of its intentions Tuesday, though it does not necessarily mean a plea deal won’t be reached.

The only other penalty option for Mr. Cruz, if convicted, is life in prison with no possibility of parole.

The decision to seek the death penalty against Mr. Cruz was widely expected, in part because Mr. Satz had hinted at his plans days after the attack.

Mr. Satz, whose state has 347 people on its death row, cited seven aggravating factors that he said prosecutors would prove and that would make Mr. Cruz eligible for execution. Those factors, enshrined in Florida law, include that Mr. Cruz “knowingly created a great risk of death to many persons” and that the capital felony at issue was “especially heinous, atrocious or cruel.”

Ira Jaffe, whose son and daughter survived the shooting, said he respects the wishes of the 17 families whose children were killed in Parkland and that time is better spent finding solutions to the problem of mass school shootings.

Fred Guttenberg, whose daughter Jamie Guttenberg died in the shooting, was angry the state decided to pursue the death penalty, noting how tortuously long capital punishment cases last and that he wishes prosecutors “would have asked the families what they wanted before they made” the announcement.

“This guy’s is willing to plea and spend the rest of his life in the general population. Let him do that and let them do what they want with him,” Mr. Guttenberg added.