FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — The jurors who will decide whether Florida school shooter Nikolas Cruz is sentenced to death or life without parole began their deliberations Wednesday as the three-month trial nears its conclusion.
Cruz, 24, pleaded guilty last year to the murders of 14 students and three staff members at Parkland’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on Feb. 14, 2018. The trial has only been to determine his sentence.
Cruz’s massacre is the deadliest mass shooting that has ever gone to trial in the U.S. Nine other people in the U.S. who fatally shot at least 17 people died during or immediately after their attacks by suicide or police gunfire. The suspect in the 2019 massacre of 23 at an El Paso, Texas, Walmart is awaiting trial.
The jurors are being sequestered during their deliberations, which could take hours or days — no one knows. They have been told to pack for at least two nights.
Here is a look at the case, how the 12-person jury will come to a decision and what will happen after that.