A little while ago, Nikolas Cruz pleaded guilty to all 17 first degree murder charges plus a lot of lesser charges (attempted murder, possessing and discharging a firearm and causing great bodily harm, etc.) arising from the massacre he committed at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.
The judge explained that the minimum sentence — the “best case scenario,” as she put it — is life in prison without possibility of parole. The maximum penalty is death. He said he understands.
Cruz’s legal team has been offering a guilty plea in exchange for the state waiving the death penalty all along, but the state repeatedly refused. It looks like Cruz’s lawyers have concluded this is the best strategy to spare their client’s life.
The small courtroom was packed with the family members of the people Cruz killed so senselessly on Valentine’s Day 2018. Fred Guttenberg, who became a gun safety advocate after his 14-year-old daughter Jaime died in the mass shooting, told reporters he visited his daughter’s grave earlier this week to “ask her for the strength to get through Wednesday’s hearing.”
Cruz is 23-years-old now. He’s thin, bespectacled and pale. He was wearing a bulletproof vest, and there were tons of cops in the room to guard Cruz and, presumably, to make sure no family members rushed him. The prosecutor read a detailed account of the monstrous, irrevocable crimes that ruined countless lives into the record.
Cruz made a somewhat random and disjointed statement to the court and the victims. He said he was very sorry, noted that he had to live with his crimes every day, said if he has a second chance, he’ll try to find a way to help people. He said he felt it should be up to the victims’ families to choose if he lives or dies.
NIKOLAS CRUZ: “I am very sorry for what I did.”
“I hope you give me a chance to try to help others.”@CourtTV @CourtTVUK #Parkland pic.twitter.com/vKT3LTdpIb
— Julie Grant (@JulieCourtTV) October 20, 2021
In the next phase, the state will try to convince a jury to give Cruz the death penalty. I have a kid the same age as Cruz. I don’t know what broke Cruz’s brain when he was 17. So much waste. Killing him would be adding to it, in my opinion, but I can certainly understand why people would feel otherwise. [sigh] This is such a fucked up world sometimes.
Open thread.
OzarkHillbilly
2 wrongs don’t make a right.
eta and I have to add only because I can never resist, that 3 lefts do.
SiubhanDuinne
I agree with you — I am opposed to capital punishment — but every now and then a case comes along where I think “If I weren’t opposed to the death penalty, I’d definitely want to use it here.” For instance, I shed no tears for Timothy McVeigh.
Boris Rasputin (the evil twin)
‘Murca – #1 in mass shootings. No other country comes close.
Ruckus
I’m not for the death penalty.
It doesn’t change anything and the person doesn’t get to think every day why they are in prison. It’s pure retribution. It doesn’t bring back those they killed. I need to be better than them, not like them.
And yes, a person I grew up knowing has been in jail for 50 years, for a murder they were part of. We have to be better than them. Better. I’ve never been in jail and I’d bet most of us never have. Imagine spending every day for the rest of your natural life in jail. The death penalty removes that, denies you the pleasure of being locked up in a cell for the rest of your life, getting to relive the memories every damn day and being able to do nothing about it. It’s breathing, eating, crapping, it isn’t a life.
Omnes Omnibus
I don’t think it should be up to the victims’ families to decide. Justice should not depend on the emotional response of traumatized people. That being said, I would be against the death penalty in any case.
Betty
Death penalty for someone that young who committed a senseless crime makes no sense to me. State-sanctioned murder is still taking another life. A life sentence without parole is bad enough.
Dorothy A. Winsor
The death penalty is barbaric. It corrupts the rest of us when we impose it.
Barbara
@Omnes Omnibus: I agree that it should not be up to the victim’s family. It’s probably one of my peculiar reactions, but I actually become agitated when I read about “restorative justice” efforts that, essentially, forgive specific individuals for having committed specific crimes. I disagree with much of our harsh and vindictive approaches to criminal justice, especially the death penalty, but the notion that individuals should get the benefit of the angels living among us who can forgive someone for a harsh crime really gets to me. Whether the angel is a judge loath to send a “good kid” away for too long or the parents who “understand” that the guy who killed their daughter in a jealous rage isn’t all bad, it almost always reinforces the worst aspects of our justice system, to seek redemption for those we are already most likely to empathize with.
Any time I read about the underage perpetrators of these mass shootings it just makes me sick all the way around. I hope Cruz doesn’t get the death penalty, but I hope no one gets the death penalty, not even the Boston Marathon bomber.
West of the Rockies
I am also against the death penalty. I wonder though about the families of the victims. Does it provide closure and psychological healing? I don’t know. Probably not as much as an opportunity to forgive would bring.
different-church-lady
Kill yourself and donate your brain to science?
I don’t really mean that, it’s just the first thought that popped into my head.
Betty Cracker
@Omnes Omnibus: Agree on both counts.
When Cruz made his statement, he was super-nervous and a little incoherent in places. He said “you” should decide, and later, the prosecutors asked the judge to clarify the “you” since they said it wasn’t clear if he meant the judge or the court or the families should get to decide when it fact it will be a jury. You could tell they were trying very hard to avoid providing any grounds for appeal. Cruz clarified he meant the families but said he understands it will be a jury.
FridayNext
@OzarkHillbilly:
But two wrights can make an airplane.
evap
I am also opposed to the death penalty in all cases. Is it absolutely certain that “life without possibility of parole” means that he will spend the rest of his life in jail? I had the impression that a “life sentence” just refers to a number of years, but I hope I am wrong in this case.
OzarkHillbilly
My cousin/best friend was killed be a drunk driver. Speaking only for myself. there is only a hole in my life where B once was.
Another Scott
@Omnes Omnibus: +1
We don’t burn witches any more. We shouldn’t execute people who do horrible things. Their brains are broken and we don’t know enough about how to fix them (or prevent them from being broken in the first place) yet.
Peace to the families and all who were affected.
Cheers,
Scott.
different-church-lady
@SiubhanDuinne:
I heard the verdict go down live on radio, and my first two thoughts were, “Good.” and “I hope we have this right.”
It’s not very morally consistent, but I have a kind of unspecified ratio in my head for these kinds of things. When you kill enough people heartlessly I no longer give a shit about taking your life in return. McVeigh was way way way beyond that ratio. Marathon Bomber The Elder I would have flipped the switch on myself. Marathon Bomber The Younger I’m conflicted about, because we’ll never really know whether he was fully and willingly complicit or only under the evil influence of his brother.
In the end, the only rational fail-safe view is against the death penalty. But I’m talking about emotions here.
raven
@Ruckus: I was on a jury that convicted a dude of a horrific rape and beating. The judge gave him like + 140 and he didn’t bat an eye. Three hots and a cot.
laura
The death penalty is barbaric and should be permanently abolished. I hope that Cruz gets a fitting punishment and I wish we had a solution to our carcereal state.
In the meantime, guns sales are up Up UP and the Robert’s Court would like everyone to have a gun and carry a gun and shoot that gun.
different-church-lady
@Another Scott:
Yeah, but that’s mostly because they don’t really exist.
Old Man Shadow
I don’t approve of the death penalty because I don’t trust the government to always get it right. Too many innocent people have been killed because the system declared them guilty and the system suffers from… well, a lot of things.
On the other hand, if they do opt to kill this particular bastard, I won’t lose any sleep over it since there is overwhelming evidence of his guilt.
Old Man Shadow
@Another Scott:
Give it a few more elections. We’ll get there again.
schrodingers_cat
@OzarkHillbilly: Only if you are a 3-D object with a sense of handedness. This is not true for a point object.
Omnes Omnibus
@Another Scott: We didn’t really burn witches in what is now the US. We hanged them.
Villago Delenda Est
He’s very sorry he got caught. As are all ammosexuals when they get caught.
JML
@evap: if you get life without the possibility of parole, then you’re never getting out unless the conviction is overturned or you are pardoned for the crime.
I oppose the death penalty, but I understand why some people still want it as an option. I think it’s vengeful and barbaric, and the fact that people can and will be executed wrongly makes me ill. Life in prison is enough, even for the monsters of the world. Lock them away and be done.
Betty Cracker
@evap: In Florida, a life sentence without possibility of parole means you don’t leave DOC custody until you’re dead. The judge emphasized that point more than once before Cruz entered his plea.
OzarkHillbilly
@schrodingers_cat: Pedant. ;-)
Villago Delenda Est
In general, I oppose capital punishment. I’ll make exceptions for MAGAt traitors, though.
Geo Wilcox
He’s not worth wasting the drugs or even a bullet on. Let him sit in a cell by himself for the rest of his life and rot there.
cope
Let him live with the memories of what he did. Death would just end his life and prevent others from learning whatever they might be able to from him.
I can see where relatives of victims might wish otherwise and maybe in their place I would as well.
Ruckus
@raven:
I was called in for a murder trial, only about 20-25 of us to select the jury from. The guy copped to it just before we were to be selected. I don’t miss having not been on that case. Not in the least.
MattF
Apparently, life in prison is the best we can do as a societal response to evil. I visited a medium-security prison once, and Lucinda Williams nailed it.
delk
The truly fucked up thing is that I had to stop and think which school shooting did this guy do?
schrodingers_cat
@OzarkHillbilly: Thinking like a physicist, sorry. Wrong assumptions get you wrong results.
Betty Cracker
Cruz’s mother died a few months before the massacre, and he was obviously an extremely troubled kid. He’d been kicked out of school numerous times, placed in special programs, etc. At the time of the massacre, he was living with a friend’s family, and the stupid parents let Cruz keep semi-automatic guns and ammo in their home. It was perfectly legal because Cruz was technically an adult at the time, but what a pair of irresponsible assholes. I hope they feel guilty about it every day of their lives.
Ruckus
I see my early post is so far the majority view. I say that’s good for our concept of what the cost should be for a deadly crime.
As I stated the person I know, still in jail, I grew up with this person, went to school for 12 yrs and to the same church. You would never suspect this person would be able to do what they did, if you had the experience that I did. Never. We never really know what is or isn’t inside the minds of some people, nor how they can change, for better or worse. You never know how some people feel about life and death or how little they value one or the other. And you will never be able to find out if the state murders them. To me, it’s just that life is short, it can, for some, have an extremely high cost to just exist, it can, for some have no cost at all to take a life. But that’s not my call. Nor should it be, not if I have any value for life. Taking away someone’s life makes me no better than them, it doesn’t matter if it’s legal or not.
Ohio Mom
There are people who practice the religion called Wicca and identify as Witches. They cast spells, which I think is about the same as praying, and consider the women who were burned at the stake (or hanged per OO) throughout history their spiritual ancestors. And in some cases, their contemporaries, because there are still occasional witch hunts and killings in third world countries (easily googleable).
On the topic of victims and families having a say in the justice process, NO. As thin as our veneer of civilization is, having violent crimes be considered crimes against the State, and not against specific individuals, is part of that veneer. If victims or families feel a need in their hearts to forgive, that is their private affair but involving them in the justice process goes against the rule of law, which as weak as it is, is just about all we have keeping chaos at bay.
Finally, I am definitely in the minority here, but I feel as badly for Cruz and his family as I do for the victims, their families and friends. There is no good answer for what to do with him except lock him up for life but it is our collective crime that we did not attend to his broken brain before he acted out (it was recognized years earlier that he had mental illness), and it is our collective fault that we live in a sea of guns. Put all this in the category, The world is yet to be redeemed.
CaseyL
I oppose the death penalty except in cases where the perp might conceivably ever get out and do it again, or directly and deliberately inspire others to do so. Political assassins, serial and mass murderers, and terrorists generally come under that heading.
Cruz is a mass murderer. But he committed his crimes while a kid. I’m conflicted about this, and would prefer life without parole but won’t be upset if the death penalty is imposed. There is no doubt about his guilt, and unless he has spent the intervening years diligently working towards being a better person who “wants to help others,” I see no indication he has engaged in a lot of self-assessment and self-betterment.
Ohio Mom
@CaseyL: Someone with the sort of mental illness Cruz has cannot “engage in a lot of self-assessment and self-betterment” without a lot of intervention. And even then, the interveners may not be successful, we do not have many tools in our mental health treatment toolbox.
Betty Cracker
@Ohio Mom: I wouldn’t go so far as to say I feel as bad for Cruz as I do for the families of the kids he killed, but I do pity him. And I agree with you that society collectively failed him. He was obviously deranged for a long time. He did everything but walk around with a neon SCHOOL SHOOTER sign over his head, but he fell through the cracks. So much anguish, including his, could have been avoided if someone in authority had noticed.
Another Scott
@raven: I got called for jury duty for an “aggravated malicious wounding” case in VA. The minimum sentence was 20 years. Maximum was life and $100k fine. Virginia has no parole (though unsuccessful efforts were made to change the law in the past session).
We don’t mess around with punitive punishment here. :-(
I don’t know how it turned out – I was excused (to go on my honeymoon).
Cheers,
Scott.
Ruckus
@Ohio Mom:
The world is yet to be redeemed.
I’m not sure that is possible, no matter how redeemed is defined. There is too much variability in our brains, which is both a good and bad thing. It’s good because that makes it more interesting and can be more fun. It’s bad because it means that some percentage will get it wrong, sometimes very, very wrong, even if they aren’t trying to. Or especially if they are trying to.
opiejeanne
@Omnes Omnibus: I agree that his sentence shouldn’t be up to the victims’ families. It would be extremely cruel to put that further burden on them.
rb
The death penalty is a moral abomination.
At the same time, our prisons are an atrocity and should be razed to the ground.
Where does this leave us with this person? I don’t know. But the “two wrongs don’t make a right” argument against the death penalty extends to the gross violation we commit in casting yet another body into the maw of our imprisonment machine, among the most vile of the freedom-features The Greatest Nation God Ever Gave Man inflicts upon its people.
Drop him and his useless guns a few hundred miles deep in the Alaskan wilderness, and let him make some sort of existence there, if he can.
Ohio Mom
@Ruckus: I meant that metaphorically. That is the only way I can tolerate religious language, as metaphor.
Like you, I don’t think the world can be redeemed. Sometimes we get moments of small redemptions though.
Kay
@Geo Wilcox:
They should talk to him. They don’t know why school shooters do this. For a long time it was “bullying” – mostly discredited- but there’s some jump that’s going on, where they go from miserable to homicidal. Maybe it won’t be worthwhile but school shooters don’t usually survive. He might be able to tell us something that will help prevent the next one. They only learn about suicide from people who fail at it. He’s the only one who can tell us what he was thinking.
greenergood
@Betty Cracker: Something tells me this guy’s ‘guardians’ won’t feel guilty at all, esp. if they’re committed gun-owners. I don’t believe in the death penalty, BUT (here is my big BUT): I think this person should be locked up for life, but like prisoners that go up for parole every few years, this person could be asked every few years if they would like to be put to death. Does this sound weird? Yes. But if I were imprisoned for life at such a young age, would I want to be incarcerated until I died of old age? Potentially 60+ years in a cell? Maybe I’d grasp the chance to leave this world if it could be done in a relatively painless manner. (I’m sure the families of his victims would like it to be incredibly painful …). Is it giving too much choice to a murderer? Probably. But if sentencing will not relent on the idea of a whole life spent behind bars, i.e. maybe perceiving them as possibly able to be rehabilitated, then maybe giving them the choice is a slight mercy. And Republicans would like it because they wouldn’t have to spent so much money on the prisoner – oh, wait, no, they’d be angry, because US prisons are privatised and prisoners mean $$$ for their prison corporations.
The Thin Black Duke
Our fucked-up society is complicit in this tragedy because when it’s easy for a fucked-up kid like Cruz to get access to guns, fucked-up things are going to happen. If anything is deserving of the death penalty, it’s the 2nd Amendment.
opiejeanne
@different-church-lady: I felt the same way about the particularly vile Richard Allen Davis, the murderer of Polly Klaas. He currently sits on Death Row.
burnspbesq
There is a huge pile of social science research that establishes to my satisfaction that the death penalty doesn’t deter folks from killing if they are of a mind to kill.
The death penalty is all about retribution, nothing more, nothing less.
I’m opposed, but if a the citizens of a state, acting through their duly elected representative, want to give juries the option, they can do that. But don’t expect me to applaud.
rb
@greenergood: “This person could be asked every few years if they would like to be put to death …. Is it giving too much choice to a murderer? Probably.”
It isn’t though. I don’t love the idea b/c I don’t love the entirely warped way we decide condemning millions of people to lives of torture and abuse is A-OK. But yes, an opt-out would be a feature rather than a bug.
The downside of course would be that it would provide us a get out of jail free (Ha fucking ha!) card for our own well-earned guilt. “Hey, if it’s so bad, he can always take the noose.”
What an amazing time to be alive.
oldster
@The Thin Black Duke:
Well said.
burnspbesq
Now, if Trump were to be convicted of treason …
Ruckus
@Ohio Mom:
Good. I took it the way you intended.
Just expanding on the premise.
Bruce K in ATH-GR
@burnspbesq: Well, Nikolas Cruz won’t be in a position to kill more people whether he gets life or death. Trump can kill more people with an unhinged public statement even if he goes to prison, so…
Ruckus
@oldster:
Agreed.
Ksmiami
@Ruckus: I am morally against the death penalty in all cases. Throw him in a maximum security prison forever but there have been so many mistakes in handing the state the power to kill people that it’s bad for America and humanity in general.
LeftCoastYankee
I think the death penalty is essentially a futile gesture. It does not deter crime, it does not correct the outcomes of the crimes committed, and does not comfort the grieving.
It is a political/societal pressure release valve for those not directly affected to feel like “justice was done here” so society can file it away as over. Until it happens again and again, because the underlying roots of violence and the cheapness of human life in our society still remain.
It also accords the power of ending life to the state, which as a power should be as limited as possible.
Just Chuck
I don’t consider life so sacred to imagine that it’s better to lock someone in an iron cage for their entire life instead. Some people are depraved and evil and just need killin’. Problem is, the ones deciding to do the killing are usually the least qualified to do so, and for damn sure that includes me. And the spectacle around the death penalty fosters a sickness in society that equates justice with personal vengeance. A sickness that for sure isn’t solely limited to the death penalty, but it is the most egregious example.
jonas
Do I want Cruz to get the death penalty? No. Will I be outraged if he does? No. But here’s the thing: there are deeply disturbed, broken people all over the world. Only in the US can these people legally acquire military-grade weapons designed for mass killing and go on a shooting spree like Cruz did. His death — if that is his eventual fate — may bring some closure to some of the victims’ families, but it won’t come close to producing any real accountability for the gun-humping culture that enabled him to kill that many people. In fact, it allows us to avoid the issue altogether by pretending this was all about one crazy, evil kid.
Just Chuck
@jonas:
It does happen elsewhere in the world. Just a lot more here, since not only is it so damn easy, there’s a fucked up subculture of millions that actively encourages it.
geg6
@West of the Rockies:
I am against the death penalty because I think it is barbaric and because I think it is a far harsher punishment to sit in a cage for the rest of your life. However, I don’t agree with the “forgiveness” stuff either. I could never forgive if someone had murdered anyone in my family. I’m not a fan of forgiveness because it just reinforces the idea that consequences aren’t important. I would never forgive. I would certainly refuse to acknowledge anything about the person who did it. I would not validate their humanity in any way and that’s what you are doing when you “forgive.”
But then, I’m an atheist so forgiveness is not all that important a concept to me.
MoCaAce
I agree that the death penalty is morally wrong and I don’t often waver on that. When its a particularly odious crime I may just shrug my shoulders but I will still admit it is wrong and serves no purpose.
I ask myself what if one of my children were a victim? Would I oppose it then? Could I stick to my principles? I pray I never find out, and no… the victims parents should never be asked to decide.
lowtechcyclist
@Boris Rasputin (the evil twin):‘
“No Way To Prevent This,” Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens
Jackie
Thread’s probably dead; I’m against the death penalty. BUT I do worry that life in prison can be pardoned – by a Trump-like president.
Soprano2
@Ruckus: A long time ago I worked with an 18-year-old kid who went to the best high school in our city, had a “good family”, and was planning to go to MU to become a veterinarian. He disappeared from the job for over a week (not unusual at this place, it was telemarketing) then called with some wild story about how he needed his paycheck right now. The rule was that if it was your last check it was mailed from the home office in Idaho, so he couldn’t get it. That night, he beat an old lady to death with a baseball bat in order to rob her antique store. Evidently he had been taking LSD and just went crazy because he needed money. From knowing him you never would have thought he was capable of such a crime. I learned a lesson from that – murderers look and act like everyone else. He got 25 to life by pleading guilty to 2nd degree murder, that was in 1993 so I have no idea if he’s still in prison or not.
I generally think the death penalty is a bad idea, but I’m not sure I would say to never sentence anyone to it.
Nelle
I testified, as a victim, in a trial where the man was convicted and sentenced to life in prison as a sexually violent predator. I was the fortinate one who fought him off and I emerged, unscathed, or, as his attorney mocked, “Your clothes weren’t even torn.” But I heard what happened to other women and I was quite willing to play a part in removing him from the streets. He’s apparently a model prisoner, as he had gone thrpugh several cycles of imprispnment and release before this. He cannot function outside and the toll on his multiple victims, over decades, is horrendous.
NotMax
The application of the penalty of death is barbaric, misguided, reprehensible and flat out abominable in all cases. Each and every one of them. It is collective revenge and state sanctioned bloodlust masquerading as justice.
It is the ultimate wrong. Period. Full stop.
stacib
I’ve been reading this blog for a long time, and I knew I wasn’t on the same page about most stuff as many of the posters here, but we are miles apart on this one. I have zero issue with him being put to death, as well as anybody else where it’s proven they committed the heinous crime of mass murder. Why should that person have the ability to attend college classes, enjoy a television program, make new friends while all the people they killed are gone forever and denied all of this stuff. Yeah, he may have issues, but so do many others and we don’t go kill up a bunch of folks. I’ll save my sympathy for all of those parents who were denied the right to see their children grow up.
Ruckus
@Soprano2:
The person I knew, I would never have though capable of the murders accused and convicted of. And yet…
The death penalty. We are supposed to be better human beings. Not all of us are. That does not mean I have to sink to their level. I’m better than that, many parts of the world are better than that. We still have a fucked society here in the US. Many states still have the death penalty, many states work hard at not letting anyone but pure white make any or much real progress and even then a lot of the white culture is crapped upon. We are not the only country in the world where money is the most important thing, but we seem to pride ourselves on screwing those who aren’t in the upper strata. Education is crap – and expensive. Something that would go a long way to making this a better culture, we rob the money from. Infrastructure, education, health care, assisting the poor, working to make fewer poor people, to help those that can’t, and the list goes on. We have asshole college football coaches who, OK did, make $3million a year. With a fucking losing record. WTF. For all intents and purpose we sell guns and ammo to anyone that wants it, lots of it and in some states you can carry loaded weapons. Hell in the UK a lot of cops don’t carry guns at all.
My point is that a lot of the world is saner than we seem to be or even try to be. We had 17 yr old cross state lines and shoot people, driven there by his insane mother.
I have no answer, but guns and the concept that it’s OK to just kill people because you feel like it, is not in anyone’s best interest. And I see the death penalty as a piece of that mentality.
PST
@different-church-lady:
If “hope we have this right” means hope the trial was without error and the verdict holds up, it brings to mind an interview I read with McVeigh’s lawyer. He said that Merrick Garland and the prosecution team did everything right, dotting every I and crossing every T. As a result of all that care, he had nothing to base an appeal on. There is a lot of impatience with Garland these days, but not shooting from the hip can pay off. Much of what DOJ does is unavoidably slow.
Kosh III
I oppose the death penalty although I could make an exception for (Ted) Cruz.
SWMBO
My father-in-law was murdered by a couple of meth heads. I was adamantly against the death penalty before that happened. Then the murder and I was all, “try ’em, fry ’em, forget ’em. A few years later (both got life without parole) and now I’m sort of glad they weren’t executed. There is a lot of revenge blood lust in these cases. And I’m sure that the families of MSDHS are going through a lot of this. But, no, the families shouldn’t be the ones to decide. It can leave a life long stain on your soul to decide to kill someone else, even through the state sanctioned method. The only problem with life without parole is if some nutter asshole decided to pardon them and let them out. I didn’t used to think that would be possible but Trump pardoned a convicted war criminal among others. You don’t get a pardon unless you are convicted of a crime. I am of mixed feelings about it still. On my better days, I still believe it is state sanctioned murder. On my not better days, I can still go back to “try ’em, fry ’em, forget ’em.” It is not an easy, one size fits all problem.