Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
‘GUILTY,’ AGAIN AND AGAIN
Nikolas Cruz to plead guilty to all 34 charges in ’18 Stoneman Douglas school shooting
Standing in front of a Broward judge Friday morning, Parkland school gunman Nikolas Cruz finally uttered the word so many have waited to hear him say.
“Guilty,” he said. Again. And again. Four times, he admitted committing a crime — though it was not the crime that made him one of America’s most vilified.
That admission, that he was criminally responsible for the intentional, methodical and premeditated murders of 14 students and three staff members at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in February 2018, will come next Wednesday, when his lawyers promise he will plead “guilty” 34 times and set the stage for jurors to consider the only question that won’t be simple for them to answer: Does Cruz deserve to live or die?
Cruz pleaded guilty Friday to four charges stemming from his November 2018 assault on a detention deputy who was guarding him
at the Broward main jail. He faces a likely maximum prison term of 15 years in that case. Prosecutors wanted to bring the assault case to a jury first because it would allow them to use the conviction as evidence Cruz deserves to be executed.
Cruz wasn’t planning to be at Friday’s hearing. Defense lawyers hadn’t even saved a seat for him.
When they asked Broward Circuit Judge Elizabeth Scherer to schedule a change of plea hearing for next Wednesday, she said no. More than 100 jurors had notices telling them to show up to court on Monday, and the judge wasn’t about to dismiss them as long as Cruz had the ability to change his mind.
“The Sheriff ’s Office can have him dressed and in court in 15
minutes,” Scherer said. “Bring him up.”
Within minutes he was there, dressed in an oversized sweater over a white-collared shirt, wearing his jail-issued prescription glasses. Scherer peppered him with a battery of questions, routine in change-of-plea hearings. She asked about his mental health.
“I don’t believe I have any issues,” he said.
She asked about medications he’s taken. The question seemed to throw him off. Eventually he satisfied the judge by saying it had been a year since he had anything “mood altering.”
Assistant Public Defender David Wheeler, whose sudden illness prompted a one-week delay in the start of the assault trial, was the first to announce the intended guilty pleas in court Friday.
The decision to plead guilty came more than a week after jury selection in the assault trial provided the defense with a preview of how jurors would react to being assigned to the case. A handful burst into tears at the sight of him. An overwhelming majority had knowledge of the case, and most of them admitted they could not give him a fair trial, not even in a case that had nothing to do with the mass shooting.
News of the defense strategy leaked Thursday night, drawing more attention than usual to Scherer’s courtroom Friday morning.
Among those seated in the gallery were Sgt. Ray Beltran, the victim in the beating case, and Mitch and Annika Dworet, whose son Nicholas, 17, was among the slain victims of the Stoneman Douglas shooting.
The Dworets sat in silence, compelled to be in the room the first time someone from Cruz’s defense finally said he would be pleading guilty. They held hands and did not speak. As they left the courtroom, they steered clear of TV cameras. Then they spoke their minds.
“We want him to get the death penalty. We want him to suffer,” Mitch Dworet said.
“We want justice to prevail,” said Annika Dworet, who was wearing a button with her son’s picture and the phrase “Forever in our hearts.”
Cruz may have spared them the need to sit through the first phase of the trial, which would have been to establish guilt, but the second phase is still on. Prosecutor Mike Satz will present the jury with evidence showing the death penalty was made for offenders like Cruz.
Defense lawyers need to convince just one juror to vote against death, guaranteeing Cruz will live out his life in prison.
For the Dworets, a trial is a small price to pay to see justice served. “We have to do what we have to do,” Mitch Dworet said.
Scherer wants jury selection in the penalty phase to start in November and testimony to begin in early 2022.
But first, on Wednesday, Cruz will stand before her again with an answer for 17 counts of first-degree murder and 17 counts of first-degree attempted murder:
“Guilty.”