FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- The final phase of jury selection in the penalty trial of Florida school shooter Nikolas Cruz began Wednesday with prosecutors and defense attorneys asking candidates about their job histories, opinions on law enforcement and racial minorities, whether they own guns and if they could handle viewing gruesome crime scene photos.
The final 83 candidates remaining from about 1,800 who began the three-step process back on April 4 are being brought back to Circuit Judge Elizabeth Scherer's courtroom in four groups over two days, the first two undergoing questioning Wednesday.
The 23 men and 15 women in the groups come from diverse backgrounds. An airline pilot. Bankers. A circus fire eater and stilt walker. A city councilwoman. Grocery store and Walmart workers. A loading dock supervisor, a human resources manager, a special education teacher, a new self-help author, a librarian, computer techs, a longshoreman and retirees. They appeared to range from their 20s through their 60s and at least 17 appeared to be racial minorities. Two volunteered they are gay. About a third said they own guns. Some are U.S. military veterans.
Cruz, 23, pleaded guilty in October to murdering 14 students and three staff members at Parkland's Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. After the finalists are questioned, 12 jurors and eight alternates will be selected on Tuesday by the attorneys and judge for the four-month trial that will decide if Cruz is sentenced to death or life in prison without parole. The trial is scheduled to start July 6.
While lead prosecutor Mike Satz mostly asked straight-forward questions Wednesday about the panelists' backgrounds, assistant public defenders Nawal Bashimam and Tamara Curtis followed with more wide-ranging and open questions, their motivation not always obvious. About half the men raised their hands when Bashimam asked if any panelists play violent video games and most panelists said they have strong animosity toward people who torture animals — both something Cruz did in the years before the shooting.