Lawyers disagree on jurors visiting massacre site
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Knowing 17 people were murdered at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on Feb. 14, 2018, won’t be enough. Seeing pictures of their bodies, hearing testimony from the doctors who performed their autopsies, even seeing surveillance video of the final moments of the terrified teenagers and faculty members won’t be enough.
To truly understand why Nikolas Cruz needs to be convicted of murder and sentenced to death, prosecutors say, jurors need to follow his steps into the staircases and the hallways and the classrooms where the crimes were committed.
And that, defense lawyers are arguing, would overwhelm the jury with a flood of emotions that will make it impossible for them to return a fair and impartial verdict.
In what may be the one of their most significant pretrial showdowns, lawyers on both sides of the case have drawn new battle lines at the crime scene. Prosecutors insist a walk-through is necessary to determine the scope of the event; defense lawyers say it would be unnecessary, excessive and inflammatory.
Evidence at trial, tentatively set for the fall, is already sure to include hundreds or thousands of crime scene photos, post-mortem pictures of each deceased victim, firsthand testimony from surviving witnesses and attempted-murder victims, surveillance video and still photos taken with a 360degree camera before investigators went into each room.
Max Schachter, father of victim Alex Schachter, said no video could capture the gravity of the crime. “The jury should have complete and unfettered access to the crime scene,” he said. “Looking at pictures and/or video is not the same thing as walking the actual hallways and into the classrooms where the victims were murdered.”
But the emotional impact of such a tour is something the trial should avoid, not embrace, defense lawyers led by assistant public defender Melisa McNeill said in their motion.
“If the jurors are so traumatized by their view of the scene that their emotions affect how they review the evidence and deliberate in ways that are prejudicial to the defendant, the jury view is not proper,” the defense team wrote.
Broward Circuit Judge Elizabeth Scherer has already ruled on the issue. In December, she granted the prosecutors’ motion for a jury view, finding that it is a proper way of introducing evidence at trial.
Most murder trials do not include crime scene visits. Most recently in Broward County, juries were taken to the scene of the 2006 murder of Broward Sheriff’s Deputy Brian Tephford and the 2002 murders of a waitress and cook at a Davie Waffle House. Jurors in the Waffle House case even walked into the freezer where the defendant allegedly kept the victims before he killed them.
Both were death penalty cases. The three defendants in the Tephford case were convicted and sentenced to life in prison. The defendant in the Waffle House murder, Gerhard Hojan, was sentenced to die.
Family members of the Parkland victims said they want jurors to tour the 1200 building where the shooting took place, which has been unused since that day.
“I relive it every day anyway,” said Debbi Hixon, whose husband, Chris Hixon, was among the victims. “It’s not something we don’t think about. People need to know the truth, they need to be in that situation that brings them to the truth of what happened that day.”
Fred Guttenberg, who lost his 14-year-old daughter Jaime in the shooting, agreed. “The defense attorneys are doing everything they can to push this trial into the next century. It’s just a delay tactic, that’s it, to [keep] the families [from getting] the justice they deserve.”
And Philip Schentrup, whose daughter Carmen was among those killed, said: “My wife and I support prosecutors’ attempts to show jurors the carnage and pain inflicted by the defendant. We believe this is an important step in helping the jury understand the magnitude of the crimes committed.”
Asked if a walk-through would cause his family suffering, he said: “Our family has suffered every day since Carmen’s murder. This trial is an opportunity to bring justice to Carmen’s murderer.”
But defense lawyers are hoping the judge changes her mind. Filing a new motion asking Judge Scherer to reconsider the decision, the lawyers said Mr. Cruz’s right to a fair trial should take precedence over the emotional impact of a crime scene tour. “Viewing the scene in its current condition will cause additional, unnecessary vicarious trauma to the jurors,” they wrote.
A hearing date has not been set. Mr. Cruz is next due in court Tuesday.