nikolas cruz

Florida school shooter Nikolas Cruz will be sentenced to life in prison this week — but not before the families of the 17 people he murdered get the chance to tell him what they think.

After the jury recommended a life sentence, there was a notion that the verdict will set a precedent of leniency that could help motivate future mass killers. An expert breaks down that claim.

Until recently, Florida law allowed the imposition of a death sentence if a majority of the jury agreed. But the Florida Legislature in 2017 voted to require jury unanimity for a death sentence to be imposed. Relatives of Cruz's victims and others say the law should now be changed.

Multiple jurors voted against the death penalty in the sentencing trial of Parkland shooter Nikolas Cruz, according to jury foreman Benjamin Thomas. “It hurts,” he said. Under Florida law, death penalty verdicts must be unanimous.

After Nikolas Cruz was spared the death penalty, family members whose loved ones were violently taken from them at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School said the justice system had failed them. Local and state officials also expressed their disappointment.

The 12-person jury at Broward County Courthouse has reached a verdict of life without the possibility of parole for the Marjory Stoneman Douglas shooter. The decision stunned and infuriated family members of the victims as they sat in the courtroom.

In the last phase of the death penalty trial for Nikolas Cruz, lawyers gave their final remarks on what should happen to the shooter. It is now on the jury to decide his fate.

Nikolas Cruz calmly told a psychologist he picked Valentine’s Day for his massacre to ruin the holiday for Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School students forever. Prosecutors concluded their rebuttal case Thursday after playing that video clip from jailhouse interviews.

The two men who offered a home, a job and a life far from South Florida to the brother of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooter were arrested in Virginia charged with exploiting the young man while pretending to help him.

Nikolas Cruz told prosecution psychiatrist Dr. Charles Scott he began contemplating mass murder while in middle school, researching the killers behind earlier massacres at Columbine High School, Virginia Tech University and elsewhere to shape his own plans.

Jurors saw the shooter's hateful internet searches, and the swastikas and satanic symbols he drew on his gun and jail cell.

Prosecutors in the penalty trial of Florida school shooter Nikolas Cruz will begin their rebuttal case Tuesday.