FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. – Work responsibilities, impact of COVID on household finances, and commitments to family are the hardships communicated to the judge during two weeks of jury selection in the Nikolas Cruz capital case.
One man told Judge Elizabeth Scherer that he must work two jobs to absorb his wife’s pandemic-era cut in pay.
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A grandmother told the court that serving would be a hardship because she is responsible for her grandchildren. “Unfortunately, during COVID, their parents took jobs that pay less.” She said that the family was not able to afford daycare.
Others talked about their workplaces being short-staffed. Even if their employer paid them entirely for the expected 4-months that the trial would last, some still described a hardship. They said the problem posed would be that they were the only person at their firm/organization in charge of a certain operational task or project.
The scope of Phase One of the jury pre-selection process has been limited to identifying who is available to serve from June through September, the amount of time the trial is expected to last. After the Court establishes that it has reached a “sufficient” number of people to serve, they will move to an upcoming phase where attorneys will ask more probing questions. Those questions will include inquiries about potential jurors views on the death penalty.
With guilt already established, the jury will need to be “fair and impartial” when it comes to sentencing, is what has been the message throughout the selection phase.
On Wednesday, Scherer said in open court that after the first six days of jury pre-selection about 200 (out of 1,213 to date per figures from the Associated Press) have already cleared round one, those who weren’t dismissed have been given a jury questionnaire and were told that they would be called back in early-May for further questioning.
Nikolas Cruz pleaded guilty to 17 counts of murder for shooting and killing 17 Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School staff and students on Valentine’s Day 2018 setting up the sentencing phase. A 12-member death-qualified jury will need to decide whether to recommend life in prison without parole or death. He also entered guilty pleas in October to wounding another 17; those could be used as evidence by the state as aggravating factors for the jury to consider.
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