By Brendan O’Brien
(Reuters) – Grieving relatives of the 17 students and teachers killed in a 2018 high school shooting in Parkland, Florida, will have a chance to confront the gunman, Nikolas Cruz, and talk about their loved ones during a two-day sentencing hearing beginning on Tuesday.
At the conclusion of the hearing on Wednesday, Broward County Circuit Judge Elizabeth Scherer is expected to sentence Cruz, 24, to life in prison without possibility of parole after a jury two weeks ago spared Cruz from the death penalty for one of the deadliest school shootings in U.S. history.
Cruz pleaded guilty last year to premeditated murder at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, about 30 miles (50 km) north of Fort Lauderdale.
Cruz, who was 19 at the time of the crime and had been expelled from the school, used a semi-automatic rifle to kill 14 students and three staff members and injure 17 others on Feb. 14, 2018.
Many family members who sat through the three-month penalty trial said they were dismayed by the jury’s decision to recommend life in prison without possibility of parole instead of the death penalty for Cruz. Judge Scherer must follow the jury’s recommendation in formally sentencing Cruz.
Before Cruz is sentenced at the end of the two-day hearing, relatives of victims will have the opportunity to address the court with statements about loved ones who were killed and wounded during the shooting. They will also have chance to speak directly to Cruz.
Fred Guttenberg, whose daughter Jaime was killed in the shooting, said on Twitter that he will not speak during the hearing.
“Because I have decided that it simply won’t change reality or the way I feel. It won’t make me feel better,” he said. “The reality is that I will still visit Jaime at the cemetery and the monster’s fate will not change. It has already been decided.”
(Reporting by Brendan O’Brien in Chicago; editing by Donna Bryson and Jonathan Oatis)
