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A state jury must now start deciding whether a gunman should be executed more than four years after he killed 17 people during a gun massacre at a high school in Parkland, Florida.
In October, Nikolas Cruz, now 23, pleaded guilty to the murders as well as 17 counts of attempted murder.
His life is in the grip of the jury, which consists of seven men and five women.
Cruz’s execution, if carried out, will be one of only a bunch of executions carried out each year in the United States, where over 2,000 people are on trial for murder. The United States is still the only Western country that allows the death penalty.
Cruz, unlike Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the man who was convicted of the 2013 Boston bombings and sentenced to death in federal court, is facing state charges in Florida.
The jury must vote on a statement for each of his victims under state law. To advise capital punishment, the judges must universally agree. In most criminal cases in the United States, a jury determines guilt and a judge decides on a punishment. In this case, however, the jury will start deciding how he is convicted.
If he is not sentenced to death, the only other option for Cruz is life in life in prison without parole or parole. However, under state law, even if the jury advises that he be executed, the judge can still sentence him to life in prison.
Prosecutors in Florida can seek the death penalty if the accused has been found guilty of first-degree murder with aggravating circumstances such as prior felony convictions, “particularly heinous, atrocious or cruel” murders, which create “a risk of death for many people” and “cold and premeditated” premeditated murders.
Prosecutors will attempt to show the extenuating circumstances and preplanned essence of the shooting and its grisly outcome during the trial, which is anticipated to last several months.
