Parkland school shooting

The Florida Senate is passing a bill to repeal a law requiring a unanimous jury recommendation for the death penalty.

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.

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.

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.

The defense team for Nikolas Cruz filed their request to remove Judge Elizabeth Scherer last Friday after she called them "unprofessional". It is not the first time the defense attorneys for the school shooter have asked the judge to step down.

Defense lawyers for the Parkland school shooter rested their case Wednesday, a move that came as a surprise–especially to the judge.

The defense team for the man who murdered 17 people ended their case early, surprising the judge and prosecutors.

The death penalty trial for the Parkland shooting trial resumed this week after a two-week break and Nikolas Cruz's lawyers have continued to take jurors through his life chronologically as they seek to prove his difficult childhood contributed to the violence. They hope it will be enough to persuade one juror to not back the death penalty, which would be enough for him to get life in prison instead.

Decisions made before the shooting, including some in utero, should be factored into the decision to give Nikolas Cruz the death penalty, his lawyers argue.

The jury will be absent this week as the sides argue before Judge Scherer, who will decide whether brain scans, tests and other evidence of the confessed Parkland school shooter the defense wants to present starting Aug. 22 is scientifically valid or junk, as the prosecution contends.