FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. – Defense attorneys will not be showing jurors images of the Parkland school shooter’s brain scan done at the Broward County main jail, attorneys in Broward County court said on Wednesday in Fort Lauderdale.
Nikolas Cruz’s defense team initially wanted to introduce it as evidence but backed out after the prosecutors’ Emory University expert, Dr. Charles Epstein, questioned the reliability of the analysis of the brain scan referring to it as “garbage.”
“We are not relying on those types of scans or comparisons,” said Casey Secor, a capital defense attorney, as he stood next to Cruz.
The jurors, who will have to decide if Cruz deserves the death penalty for his crimes during the 2018 Valentine’s Day massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, were not in the courtroom during the hearing.
Prosecutors rested their case on Aug. 4 after the seven men and five women on the jury toured the preserved crime scene, watched surveillance videos, viewed photographs of the victims’ bodies, and listened to the statements of the 17 victims’ grief-stricken loved ones. Some of the testimony had Cruz’s defense attorneys dabbing their eyes.
The defense is preparing to present the case on Aug. 22 to persuade the jurors that Cruz’s life should be spared and that spending the rest of his life in prison should be enough punishment.
Broward Circuit Judge Elizabeth Scherer had yet to sign an order about the admissibility of expert witness testimony after the prosecution and the defense came to an agreement, so the details had yet to become public on Wednesday afternoon.
Cruz, now 23, was 19 years old when he armed himself with an AR-15 rifle and shot into classrooms and in the hallway of the school’s former three-story 1200 building. Cruz pleaded guilty to 17 counts of murder and 17 counts of attempted murder in October.
Assistant Public Defender Melisa McNeill only has to convince one juror and will likely present other evidence showing Cruz suffered brain damage and struggled with mental health conditions.
If the jurors do not come to a unanimous agreement on the death sentence, Scherer will have to sentence Cruz to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Scherer and the legal teams will reconvene for a hearing at 9 a.m. on Thursday in Broward County court. An attorney representing Cruz’s younger brother Zachary Cruz is expected to be in attendance to argue against some of the prosecution’s questions. Assistant State Attorney Jeff Marcus was preparing to argue against the objections. The jurors will not be present.
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