FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. – The judge overseeing the case of Parkland school shooter Nikolas Cruz said Tuesday she will consider a defense request to delay the start of trial beyond late January.
Broward County Judge Elizabeth Scherer set a Dec. 19 date for arguments on the motion by defense lawyers who claim the case is moving much too swiftly and runs the risk of legal errors. That could mean a conviction of Cruz might be reversed on appeal, sending it back for another high-profile trial.
Prosecutors have been pushing hard to start the trial with jury selection beginning Jan. 27. Broward County State Attorney Mike Satz, who is the chief prosecutor on the case, said the motion to delay trial must be heard quickly.
“We just can’t wait until the last minute,” Satz said at a hearing.
Cruz, 21, faces 17 counts of first-degree murder and 17 counts of attempted murder in the Valentine's Day 2018 massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. He faces the death penalty if convicted, although his lawyers said he will plead guilty in return for a life prison sentence.
A motion filed Tuesday claims that, if the trial begins as scheduled, “the 20-month period defense counsel will have had to prepare the case for trial is less than half the median preparation time that Broward circuit courts have permitted for the preparation of capital cases over the past two decades.”
It goes on to say that starting the trial in January “would bring this case to trial faster than 33 of the 38 death penalty cases in Broward County since 1994.”
Motion to Dismiss by Anonymous DP0nOt on Scribd
On the current schedule, Cruz’s trial would begin less than two years after the mass shooting. He was arrested that same day. Defense lawyers said that is far too fast for them to adequately prepare a defense in a case of such magnitude.
“We want to make sure it’s done once and it’s done right,” Gordon Weekes, chief assistant public defender in Broward County, said. “Expedience has taken precedence over the prudent disposition of this case.”
The three “disturbing factors” defense attorneys claim are the reason for the rush to trial is the high-profile media attention surrounding the case, the fact that Scherer is up for re-election in 2020 and that Satz is retiring at the end of his term next year.
Scherer sought Tuesday to keep the case on track for a Jan. 27 start by scheduling the December hearing on the motion for a continuance.
“It’s better to have it sooner rather than later,” the judge said.
The defense motion notes that there are at least 1,000 witnesses identified by prosecutors in the case, and each of them must be interviewed by Cruz's lawyers. There are about 4 million pages of evidence, thousands of photos, videos, and social media posts and much more.
There is still a huge amount of work to be done by the defense, Weekes said.
“This court is pushing it forward at breakneck speed to acquiesce to the state,” he said.