The Parkland mass shooting trial will not be delayed by the massacre at a Texas elementary school.
As jury selection in the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School case was scheduled to resume Wednesday morning, the deaths of 21 victims in Texas on Tuesday cast a shadow over the proceedings.
Confessed Parkland school shooter Nikolas Cruz was late being brought to the courtroom. Lawyers clashed over whether the latest news should be tackled directly or left for potential jurors to raise.
But stopping the trial was never on the table.
“There was a shooting yesterday. And there will be more,” Assistant State Attorney Carolyn McCann said. “The defendant [Cruz] is not special. He is not unique. He is not extraordinary. This is a crime that has happened before and it will happen again. And we cannot break every time something terrible happens.”
Broward Circuit Judge Elizabeth Scherer found a middle ground Wednesday, allowing lead defense lawyer Melisa McNeill to bring up the general subject of school shootings and leaving it for the potential jurors to raise the deadly incident that took place Tuesday at Robb Elementary School in Texas. An 18-year-old gunman entered the school in the tiny town of Uvalde and slaughtered 19 students and two teachers in a fourth-grade classroom, authorities there say.
It didn’t take long for jurors in Broward to bring it up.
“We all know what happened yesterday,” said one potential juror, a woman. “I send my kid to school expecting my kid to come back home.”
Two others, men, chimed in that the crime deserves the death penalty. All three said the Texas shooting had an effect on their views.
Cruz, 23, has pleaded guilty to 17 counts of first-degree murder and 17 counts of attempted murder. The sentencing trial will determine whether he is sentenced to death or to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Tom Hoyer, whose son, Luke, was among the dead in Parkland, has been one of the few parents to regularly attend jury selection. He arrived on Wednesday without his wife, who usually accompanies him.
“I’m in physical pain with what they’re going through,” Hoyer said, tearing up while talking about the Texas victims outside the courtroom. “It’s terrible. I’m so sorry it happened to them.”
Sitting in court day after day is difficult but necessary, he said.
“I cope by knowing that this is a chapter of my life that will soon be closed,” he said. “I don’t know what the outcome is going to be. But I’d like to see the chapter closed.”
Lawyers interviewed several potential jurors Wednesday. Nine will return next month for the third and final phase of jury selection.
So far, 36 potential jurors are cleared for phase three, meaning they are able to sit on a jury for about four months and did not express views on the death penalty that disqualify them from service.
The trial is expected to last through September.
Susannah Bryan can be reached at sbryan@sunsentinel.com or on Twitter @Susannah_Bryan. Rafael Olmeda can be reached at rolmeda@sunsentinel.com. Call or text him at 954-356-4457. Follow him on Twitter @rolmeda.
