Prosecutors: School massacre not mitigated by others’ errors
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. – Attorneys for a former student accused of killing 17 people at a Florida high school should not be allowed to use any failures by his therapists, school officials or campus security guards as mitigating factors during the death penalty phase of his trial if he is convicted, a prosecutor told a judge Wednesday.
Prosecutor Jeff Marcus told Circuit Judge Elizabeth Scherer that Nikolas Cruz’s attorneys should not be allowed to argue that failures by others alleviate his responsibility for the Feb. 14, 2018, shootings at Marjory Stoneman Douglas
High School in Parkland.
Marcus told Scherer that Cruz’s attorneys should not be allowed to argue that his responsibility for the deaths is lessened by the school violating its security procedures by unlocking its gates before dismissal and leaving them unguarded, allowing him to sneak in. Nor should they be allowed to argue that his actions are mitigated by the failure of some students who were shot to follow mass shooting protocols they had been taught, Marcus said.
Cruz attorney Melisa Mcneill said her side will never use mitigating circumstances “as an excuse, as a defense or as a justification for the crimes that occurred.” But, she said, jurors must know all the circumstances surrounding Cruz, his life and the shootings if he is convicted and they are asked to decide between the death penalty and life in prison.