The Parkland school shooter is set to be sentenced to life in prison today
By Dakin Andone, CNN
(CNN) - The gunman who murdered 17 people in 2018 at a South Florida high school is expected to be sentenced Wednesday to life in prison without the possibility of parole, bringing to a close an agonizing, months long trial in which a jury declined to recommend a death sentence.
Nikolas Cruz, 24, is due to face more of his victims in court before Broward Circuit Judge Elizabeth Scherer formally levies the sentence recommended last month -- an outcome that disappointed and angered many relatives of those he killed, including some who confronted Cruz Tuesday in court.
"I'm too old to see you live out your life sentence, but I hope your ever(y) breathing moment here on Earth is miserable and you repent for your sins," Theresa Robinovitz, the grandmother of slain 14-year-old Alyssa Alhadeff, told the shooter. "And burn in hell."
Cruz pleaded guilty last year to 17 counts of murder and 17 counts of attempted murder for the massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, which despite the continued American gun violence epidemic remains the deadliest mass shooting at a US high school.
The state sought the death penalty, and so Cruz's trial moved to the sentencing phase, in which a jury was tasked with hearing prosecutors and defense attorneys argue reasons they felt he should or should not be put to death.
The prosecution argued, in part, the shooting was especially heinous, atrocious or cruel and was premeditated and calculated. The defense, pushing for a life sentence, pointed to the shooter's mental or intellectual deficits they said stemmed from prenatal alcohol exposure.
Three jurors were persuaded to vote for life, sparing Cruz a death sentence, which in Florida a jury must unanimously recommend. Scherer must follow the jury's recommendation of life without parole, per state law.
Still, the life sentence fell short of what many of those Cruz wounded and the families of those he killed wanted.
"He shouldn't live," Anthony Montalto III, whose older sister Gina, 14, was killed in the shooting, said Tuesday, "while my sister rots in the grave."
The-CNN-Wire
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