FILE – Regulation enforcement officers block off the entrance to Marjory Stoneman Douglas Significant College in Parkland, Fla., Feb. 15, 2018, the working day following a lethal taking pictures at the college. Jurors in the trial of Florida school shooter Nikolas Cruz are predicted to walk as a result of the continue to blood-spattered rooms of the high university Thursday, Aug. 4, 2022, in a take a look at to the three-tale developing where by he murdered 14 students and three workers customers 4 yrs in the past. (AP Photo/Wilfredo Lee, File)
AP
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla.
Jurors in the demo of Florida faculty shooter Nikolas Cruz are anticipated to walk by way of the nevertheless blood-spattered rooms of Parkland’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas Large Faculty on Thursday in a go to to the a few-tale setting up wherever he murdered 14 college students and three team members four several years back.
The 7-male, 5-lady jury and 10 alternates will be bused underneath large stability the 30 miles (48 kilometers) from the Broward County Courthouse in downtown Fort Lauderdale to the suburban university. Regulation enforcement plans to seal off the place all-around the university and plane may be barred from flying overhead to stop protesters from interrupting the proceedings and to guard the jurors’ safety.
The panelists and their law enforcement escorts will be accompanied into the making by Circuit Judge Elizabeth Scherer, prosecutors and Cruz’s attorneys. Cruz will not be present, in accordance to a single of his attorneys. Prosecutors, who are winding up their scenario, are hoping the pay a visit to will enable confirm that the former Stoneman Douglas student’s steps had been cold, calculated, heinous and cruel created a great risk of dying to many men and women and “interfered with a federal government function” — all aggravating variables less than Florida’s money punishment law.
Below Florida courtroom rules, neither the decide nor the lawyers are authorized to converse to the jurors — and the jurors usually are not allowed to converse with each other — when they retrace the route Cruz adopted on Feb. 14, 2018, as he methodically moved from ground to ground, firing down hallways and into lecture rooms as he went. The jurors have already found surveillance online video of the shooting and images of its aftermath.
Journalists will not be allowed inside of until finally following the jurors depart, and will not be allowed to have cameras.
The setting up has been sealed and surrounded by a chain-link fence given that shortly immediately after the massacre. Identified both of those as the freshman and 1200 creating, it looms ominously in excess of the university and its academics, personnel and 3,300 learners, and can be witnessed quickly by any person nearby. The Broward County college district strategies to demolish it whenever the prosecutors approve. For now, it is a courtroom exhibit.
“When you are driving earlier, it is really there. When you are going to course, it is really there. It is just a colossal framework that you won’t be able to overlook,” mentioned Kai Koerber, who was a Stoneman Douglas junior at the time of the taking pictures. He is now at the University of California, Berkeley, and the developer of a psychological health cellular phone app. “It is just a constant reminder … that is immensely making an attempt and awful.”
Cruz, 23, pleaded responsible in October to 17 counts of initially-diploma murder the trial is only to decide if he is sentenced to death or lifetime devoid of parole.
The building’s inside has been left just about intact given that the capturing: Bloodstains nevertheless smear the flooring, and doors and partitions are riddled with bullet holes. Windows in classroom doors are shot out. Rotted Valentine’s Working day flowers, deflated balloons and other gifts are strewn about. Only the bodies and particular belongings this sort of as backpacks have been eradicated.
Miami defense legal professional David S. Weinstein explained prosecutors are hoping the stop by will be “the last piece in erasing any question that any juror could possibly have had that the loss of life penalty is the only suggestion that can be made.”
These website visits are uncommon. Weinstein, a former prosecutor, explained in extra than 150 jury trials courting back to the late 1980s, he has only experienced just one.
Just one reason for their rarity is that they are a logistical nightmare for the choose, who demands to get the jury to the place and back to the courthouse devoid of incident or danger a mistrial. And in a standard case, a pay a visit to wouldn’t even current truthful proof: Soon after legislation enforcement leaves, the setting up or public space returns to its typical use. The scene will get cleaned up, objects get moved and repairs are manufactured. It can be why judges order jurors in lots of trials not to take a look at the scene on their personal.
Craig Trocino, a University of Miami legislation professor who has represented defendants pleasing their demise sentences, explained the check out — blended with the myriad graphic videos and shots jurors have by now noticed — could open an avenue for Cruz’s lawyers if they locate by themselves in the exact same condition.
“At some stage proof gets inflammatory and prejudicial,” he claimed. “The web site go to might be a cumulative capstone.”
Cruz’s lawyers have argued that prosecutors have used proof not just to confirm their circumstance, but to inflame the jurors’ passions.
Prosecutors are predicted to relaxation their scenario shortly immediately after the stop by.