Florida school shooter may have been his own worst witness
09.10.2022 - 21:39
/ foxnews.com
It's possible Florida school shooter Nikolas Cruz talked himself into a death sentence. Prosecutors played video last week at Cruz's penalty trial of jailhouse interviews he did this year with two of their mental health experts. In frank and sometimes graphic detail, he answered their questions about his massacre of 17 people at Parkland's Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on Feb.
14, 2018 — his planning, his motivation, the shootings. While it can’t be known what the 12 jurors are thinking, if any are wavering between voting for death or life without parole, his statements to Dr. Charles Scott, a forensic psychiatrist, and Robert Denney, a neuropsychologist, did not help his cause.
"All of this made Cruz himself perhaps one of the state’s best witnesses," said David S. Weinstein, a Miami defense attorney and former prosecutor who has been monitoring the trial. Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooter Nikolas Cruz is shown on a courtroom monitor during a videotaped interview with clinical neuropsychologist Dr.
Robert L Denney as Dr. Denney testifies during the penalty phase of Cruz's trial at the Broward County Courthouse in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., on Thursday, Oct. 6, 2022.
Cruz previously plead guilty to all 17 counts of premeditated murder and 17 counts of attempted murder in the 2018 shootings. (Amy Beth Bennett/South Florida Sun Sentinel via AP, Pool) (Amy Beth Bennett/South Florida Sun Sentinel via AP, Pool) The jury will likely decide Cruz's fate this week. For the 24-year-old to get a death sentence, the jury must be unanimous on at least one victim.