The perpetrator of a 2018 Florida high school shooting escaped the death penalty on Thursday after a jury opted after three months of a grueling trial for life imprisonment.
Nikolas Cruz, whose sentence is incompressible, did not show any reaction to the reading of the verdict by Judge Elizabeth Scherer in a Fort Lauderdale court.
Relatives of the victims greeted the news with serious faces, with one nodding in disagreement.
They will be able to speak at a hearing on 1er November, during which the magistrate will formally ratify the sentence.
After only seven hours of deliberation, the twelve jurors retained several aggravating circumstances, in particular on the “hateful, atrocious and cruel” nature of the crime. But at least one of them felt that they were not enough to offset the mitigating circumstances.
It would have taken unanimity on this point for the death penalty to be retained, as the prosecution had requested.
On February 14, 2018, 17-year-old Nikolas Cruz struck fear in Parkland, a small town north of Miami, by opening fire at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, from which he had been expelled a year earlier. .
In October 2021, he pleaded guilty to the 17 murders committed on this Valentine’s Day, those of 14 students and three adults, and 17 attempted murders, one for each injured. His trial was therefore aimed solely at determining the appropriate sentence.
Further details will follow.