A Florida jury on Thursday reached a verdict for Nikolas Cruz, who pleaded guilty to killing 17 people, 14 children and three adults at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, in 2018.
USA Today reported that the verdict was decided at 10:30 a.m. EDT. The jury consisted of seven men and five women who deliberated for a little over a day on whether the Parkland shooter would receive the death penalty.
According to The Associated Press, the Parkland shooting is the deadliest mass shooting to ever be tried in the United States.
In the state of Florida, a death sentence has to be agreed upon unanimously by the jury. According to Death Penalty Information Center, Florida previously had nonunanimous jury recommendations for the death sentence. The Florida Department of Corrections indicated that the last time someone on death row was executed was in 2019.
The New York Times gave live updates on the verdict for the case.
- On the counts for murder of Luke Hoyer, Martin Duque, Gina Montalto, Alexander Schachter, Alaina Petty, Alyssa Alhadeff, Nicholas Dworet, Helena Ramsay, Christopher Hixon, Carmen Schentrup, Aaron Feis, Scott Beigel, Meadow Pollack, Cara Loughran, Joaquin Oliver, Jamie Guttenberg and Peter Wang, the Florida jury recommended a life sentence without parole.
- This means that Cruz was sentence to life in prison without the possibility of parole on all 17 counts of first-degree murder.