Testimony ends in Parkland shooter Nikolas Cruz’s trial

The fate of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooter Nikolas Cruz will be deliberated by a jury next week.

Testimony in the case of the 24-year-old gunman who admittedly killed 17 people during a 2018 mass shooting in the Miami suburb of Parkland, Fla., ended Thursday, the South Florida Sun Sentinel reported.

Cruz, who was 19 at the time of the killings, has confessed to the crime, though prosecutors asked that a jury decide whether he lives or dies. If that 12-person panel unanimously votes for the death penalty, Broward Circuit Judge Elizabeth Scherer rules on the fate of the now 24-year-old Florida man.

The judge in the case has never presided over a death penalty trial. She and defense attorney Melisa McNeill had words in mid-September after McNeill rested her case without calling forth several witnesses expected to testify.

The defendant’s lawyer has argued for leniency on account of testimony that indicated Cruz’s mother abused drugs and alcohol during her pregnancy. Cruz also claimed he was a survivor of sexual abuse.

But an expert testifying for the prosecution contended that the defendant did several things while committing the killings that indicated he was in control of his faculties.

He was accused of deliberately committing the killings on Valentine’s Day and scrawling racially offensive sentiments onto his backpack before opening fire and hitting 34 people, half of whom survived.

[ Parkland shooting suspect can’t be called ‘animal’ at his trial ]

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That level of planning, according to the state’s expert, would undermine the argument that fetal alcohol spectrum disorder may have contributed to his actions. It would also not explain other acts of misconduct by the defendant, which included attacking a prison guard nine months after his arrest.

Cruz’s attorney has reportedly argued that past traumas don’t excuse her client’s actions, but simply give them “context.”

Cruz and his younger brother Zachary Cruz were said to have been born to a Fort Lauderdale prostitute who abused booze and cocaine. A witness at Cruz’s trial said the boys’ mother used drugs while pregnant.

The world was rocked by news of another school shooting Thursday when an ex-police officer in Thailand killed at least 36 people — 22 of whom were children — after opening fire on a campus in Nongbua Lamphu. The suspect reportedly shot himself, as well.

Closing arguments in Cruz’s trial were scheduled for Tuesday.