The sudden rest prompted the judge to chew out Nikolas Cruz’s lawyers.
In 2021, 22-year-old, now 23, Nikolas Cruz killed 17 and wounded 17 in a mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. The legal case to decide Cruz’s sentencing has been underway for the past several weeks, with the defense seeking life without parole and the prosecution seeking the death penalty. The prosecution gave their initial arguments, showing the results of Cruz’s attack in detail, while the defense has offered an overview of Cruz’s life to explain his actions.
However, this week, Cruz’s lawyers broke protocol when, upon being asked to present their next witness by Judge Elizabeth Scherer, they suddenly announced that they were resting their case. This is in spite of only calling about half of the alleged 80 witnesses they originally planned to call, including Cruz’s own brother. After taking a moment to react to their decision, Judge Scherer gave the defense a severe dressing-down.
“I just want to say this is the most uncalled for, unprofessional way to try a case,” Scherer said. Melisa McNeill, Cruz’s lead public defender, attempted to object to the Judge’s criticism, but the Judge waved her off.
“Do that later,” the judge answered. “You’ve been insulting me the entire trial, blatantly. Taking your headphones off, arguing with me, storming out, coming late intentionally if you don’t like my rulings. Quite frankly, this has been long overdue. So please be seated.”
According to Robert Jarvis, a professor at Nova Southeastern University’s law school, the defense’s decision is highly unusual.
“Perhaps the defense felt it had made its case. Perhaps the defense felt it was losing the jury and further witnesses would only alienate the jury. Perhaps the defense felt that the witnesses to be called would give the prosecution too much leeway to explore matters during cross-examination that the defense did not want explored,” Jarvis told USA Today.
The prosecution will begin their rebuttal on September 27.
