Florida school shooter who killed 17 avoids the death penalty

Nikolas Cruz will be sentenced to life in prison without parole for the fatal shooting of 17 people at Parkland’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida after the jury could not unanimously agree he should be executed.

The jury’s recommendation came after seven hours of deliberations over two days, ending a three-month trial that included graphic videos, photos and testimony from the massacre, heart-wrenching testimony from victims’ family members and a tour of the still blood-spattered building.

Under Florida law, a death sentence requires a unanimous vote on at least one count. Circuit Judge Elizabeth Scherer will formally issue the sentence later.

Cruz, his hair unkempt, largely sat hunched over and stared at the table as the jury’s recommendations were read.

Cruz brought terror and heartache to Parkland’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School but cut a pathetic figure in court

Rumblings grew from the family section — packed with about three dozen parents, spouses and other relatives of the victims — as life sentences were announced. Many shook their heads, looked angry or covered their eyes.

Cruz, 24, pleaded guilty a year ago to murdering 14 students and three staff members and wounding 17 others on February 14 2018.

Cruz said he chose Valentine’s Day to make it impossible for Stoneman Douglas students to celebrate the traditionally romantic holiday ever again.

Lead prosecutor Mike Satz kept his case simple for the seven-man, five-woman jury. He focused on Cruz’s eight months of planning, the seven minutes he stalked the halls of a three-storey classroom building, firing 140 shots with an AR-15-style semi-automatic rifle, and his escape.

Mugshot: despite bragging that he would 'not be taken alive', cowardly Cruz meekly surrendered.

Cruz’s lead attorney Melisa McNeill and her team never questioned the horror he inflicted but focused on their belief that his birth mother’s heavy drinking during pregnancy left him with foetal alcohol spectrum disorder.

Their experts said his bizarre, troubling and sometimes violent behaviour starting at the age of two was misdiagnosed as attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, meaning he never got the proper treatment. That left his widowed adoptive mother overwhelmed, they said.

The defence cut their case short, calling only about 25 of the 80 witnesses they said would testify. They never brought up Cruz’s high school years or called his younger half-brother, Zachary, whom they accused of bullying.

In rebuttal, Mr Satz and his team contended that Cruz did not suffer from foetal alcohol damage but has anti-social personality disorder — in lay terms, he is a sociopath.

Cruz made a selfie-video espousing his racial intolerance and hatred before undertaking his gun rampage.

Their witnesses said Cruz faked brain damage during testing and that he was capable of controlling his actions but chose not to. For example, they pointed to his employment as a cashier at a discount store where he never had any disciplinary issues.

Prosecutors also played numerous video recordings of Cruz discussing the crime with their mental health experts where he talked about his planning and motivation. The defence alleged on cross-examination that Cruz was sexually molested and raped by a 12-year-old neighbour when he was nine and had been badly affected by the ordeal but had not received any counselling or other treatment to learn coping mechanisms.

Behavioural experts and profilers say that abuse, and his sociopathic tendencies – aligned to an anti-social penalty disorder – are features that figure prominently among serial and spree killers with narcissistic tendencies who blame society for their own ills.