Nikolas Cruz pleaded guilty last year to murdering14 students and three staff members at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida.
A Florida jury has recommended life in prison for Parkland shooter Nikolas Cruz, who pleaded guilty last year to murdering 14 students and three staff members at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.
The 2018 shooting massacre also injured 17 others on campus. Prosecutors had demanded the death penalty for the now 24-year-old Cruz, who was 19 when he walked onto the suburban Miami school grounds and opened fire with an assault-type weapon.
Broward County Circuit Judge Elizabeth Scherer set sentencing for Nov. 1.
Relatives in the packed courtroom held hands and wept Thursday waiting as the verdicts were read. The panel of seven men and five women had two choices, death or life in prison without parole.
Cruz showed little emotion as the verdicts on each count were read by Judge Scherer.
Jurors began hearing witness testimony in deciding Cruz's fate on July 18. They had toured the crime scene and after deliberating for little more than one day, announced Thursday morning they had reached a verdict.
The Parkland slaughter was the worst high school mass shooting in U.S. history.
Some family members shook their heads as they learned jurors voted to send Cruz to prison for the rest of his life. Others looked angry. Some simply cried in disbelief.
The prosecution painted Cruz as a brutal and calculating murderer. Defense attorneys said he was brain damaged, broken, and tainted before birth by his pregnant mother's heavy drinking and drug use.
Cruz pleaded guilty in October 2021 to 17 counts of murder and 17 counts of attempted murder for the February 2018 shootings.
The shooter was "hunting his victims," prosecutors said and had returned to kill students including Peter Yang and Joaquin Oliver, whose initial gunshot wounds were not fatal, according to the testimony of medical examiners.
Florida hasn't carried out an execution since 2019.
