Law&Crime Sidebar - Most Powerful Moments from Parkland Shooter Sentencing

Episode Date: November 3, 2022

Law & Crime Network's Jesse Weber breaks down some of the most powerful and dramatic moments in the sentencing hearing for the confessed Parkland school shooter.LAW&CRIME SIDEBAR PRODUCTION:YouTube Management - Bobby SzokePodcasting - Sam GoldbergVideo Editing - Logan HarrisGuest Booking - Alyssa FisherSocial Media Management - Kiera BronsonSUBSCRIBE TO OUR OTHER PODCASTS:Court JunkieObjectionsThey Walk Among AmericaCoptales and CocktailsThe Disturbing TruthSpeaking FreelyLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lawandcrimeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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that will keep you on the edge of your seat. Don't let your fears take hold of you as you dive into this addictive series. Love thrillers with a paranormal twist? The entire Oracle trilogy is available on Audible. Listen now on Audible. I hope your ever-breathing moment here on Earth is miserable. And you repent for your sins, Nicholas, in burning hell. we break down some of the most powerful and dramatic moments in the sentencing hearing for the confessed parkland school shooter welcome to sidebar presented by law and crime i'm jesse weber because parkwin murderer is going to come a day it could be a week from now it could be a month from now it could be 40 years from now you're going to die when you die it is my fondest hope that they take you and put and and and burn you and take your ashes and thrown in the

garbage dump I hope the murder your maker send you directly to hell to burn for the rest of your eternity the sentencing for the confessed Parkland School shooter is over judge Elizabeth sure officially sentenced Nicholas Cruz to life in prison without the possibility of parole this came of course after a jury amended that the killer be sentenced to life in prison as opposed to the death penalty. As you know, the shooter had pled guilty to 17 counts of murder and 17 counts of attempted murder for opening fire at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School back in 2018. And the jury's decision of life over death hit the victims and the victims' family members

particularly hard because this is not what they wanted. And they made that very clear directly after this verdict in a post-verdict press conference. But we had absolutely no idea what we would end up seeing in this. this sentencing hearing because you see under the law, victims and victims family members can provide impact statements to the court in anticipation of the official sentencing by a judge. And sometimes these statements can really play a more practical role. They can actually have an important effect on the judge who has discretion in handing down a sentence. Maybe a judge would hear some of these statements and recommend five years in prison as opposed to one year in prison. But here, that wasn't

the case for Judge Elizabeth. Sure, there really wasn't anything she could do. The jury recommended life in prison so that's the sentence she had by law she has to hand down but that didn't stop any of these individuals from providing incredibly powerful and arguably controversial statements in court and to give you a sense of that i want to start with a statement from linda beagle shulman she is the mother of victim scott beagle the 35-year-old geography teacher who actually helped save the lives of several of his students on that day i learned that here in florida the average death case takes 18 years from sentencing to execution. That means that I would probably be dead before you are executed.

I will go forward knowing that you are going to a maximum security prison with other murderers, much tougher than you are. A prison where you will spend the rest of your miserable life, having to look over your shoulder, worried about every single minute of your day, day of your life and scared out of your mind fearful for someone to take you out. A prison where you will be other inmates boy toy, a prison where your fellow prison inmates are just waiting to tear you apart because from what I hear, child killers are highly frowned upon and hated in prison. You will look back at the time that you spent in the Broward County Jail and see it as it was a hotel compared to the prison where you are headed.

As far as I'm concerned, real justice would be done if every family here were given a bullet and your AR-15. And we got to pick straws. And each one of us got to shoot one at a time at you, making sure that you felt every bit of it and your fear continued to mount until the last family member who pulled that last straw had the privilege of making sure that they killed you. That's real justice for you. And this is pretty consistent with what we've heard. The parents hoping and praying that Cruz be killed in prison, a form of street justice, clearly expressing their pain and heartbreak, but also their frustration at the legal system, their frustration at the jury for not voting in favor of death.

And we heard this theme, not only that the jury got it wrong, but perhaps that the law needs to be overhauled. Because in Florida, the law actually changed. Before 2016, all you needed was a majority vote of a jury to recommend the death penalty, but then it changed to become a unanimous jury vote, and at least one parent expressed that that's not fair, that how can a minority vote rule? After all, if one juror votes in favor of life in prison, the sentence is life in prison. Now, that's a whole different conversation for another day, but I want to go back to the statements. And I should tell you that these parents and the family members didn't only direct their anger towards Nicholas Cruz. The controversy

that I mentioned before is when they directed their comments to the defense team, who advocated that the death penalty wasn't warranted and highlighted for the jury, the defendant's mental health troubles, his problematic early life. And remember, in a way, they won, right? They got life in prison. So the defense won here. Well, here is Max Schachter, the father of 14-year-old Alex Schachter, who has killed at Parkland. You're making the mental health crisis in America worse by misrepresenting what actually happened to the Parkland murderer. Just so you can receive fame and notoriety and go on a book tour? There are so many people that really need mental health services and did not get them, but that's not the case with the Parkland murderer.

His psychiatrist, his psychologist, counselors, ESE teachers all testified to that effect. He was on medication for most of his life. The problem was that he didn't receive, not that he didn't receive services or medication, the problem was that none of it worked. You obviously have a very high tolerance for murder. God knows what you're showing your kids on television. You obviously have no conscience. If you don't think that this is the worst of the worst, how could you sit there listening to what he did and say this is not the worst of the worst? He hunted down innocent children and staff terrified, then tortured them, blew their heads apart like a water balloon and enjoyed it.

That doesn't make it on your worst of the worst murderers list? You make me sick. And it didn't end there. You see, at one point, Manuel Oliver made a victim impact. statement. This is the father of 17-year-old victim Joaquin Oliver, and he decided to address something that the defense had allegedly done because the week before the trial began, there was a hearing that was going to be held and before the hearing even started up, the video camera in court actually caught the defense seemingly discussing whether they should throw the middle

finger up to the camera while Mr. Oliver decided to display that very same gesture directly towards the defense team. hiding your actions. The middle finger lady. Apologizing for a middle finger. You need to learn how to do a middle finger. So you don't need to apologize to anyone. These kinds of comments are what caused defense counsel

Melissa McNeil to ask Judge Elizabeth Scher to step in and stop the parents from making these comments towards them. But the judge ended up. dismissing her. Our system of justice is designed the way that it was administered in this courtroom. If he would have gotten death, we would not have said one single word about that, and we would have respected the jury's verdict. This is our system of government judge, and your honor should be maintaining the decorum to prevent these families from attacking our children and from attacking us personally when all we were appointed on this case. Okay. You're, you're, you're

And the judge, oh boy, she got into a heated exchange with one of the defense lawyers. Judge, I have no problem because I have big skin. But once you bring in my children, I think that's highly improper. I didn't even know you have children. I don't know what you're talking about. Your children, what about your children? But then the comment on my children is highly improper. Before this fourthful lab, that kind of testimony is also...

There was... I don't remember any comments about any children. children. And if there was, it obviously didn't, it came and went without me noticing it. Judge, I can assure you that if they were talking about your children, you would definitely notice it. You need to sit down right now. You're out of line. In fact, you're excused. You need to go sit in the back with your chief public defender. Mr. Weeks, please ask the lawyer. from your office to go sit down and not to say anything else. To try to threaten my children and bring up my children

is inappropriate. Go to the back of the room now. That just violated about every rule of professional responsibility that I have ever, I have never. If you're going to get up here and you're going to. Judge, I asked you to go sidebar on this matter. You, sidebar or not, you don't have one of your assistant public defenders say something

about my children. Judge, that same venom that the court is expressing is the same venom that defense counsel had to sit through this entire morning when their children will be in the trial. Nobody knows if I'm barren or not. They don't know about my children. Judge, sit down, sit down.

Judge, sit down, Mr. Weeks. Please do not summarily dismissing. I'm summarily dismissing you, go sit down. I'm asking the court. I ask the court to go sidebar. Go sit down. You don't threaten the court's children. Your assistant just did that.

Go sit down. No one in this courtroom had to endure what we have to endure. Go sit down. Miss McNeil has made her children a spectacle more than once during this trial. That was her choice. You have absolutely no right to have one of your assistants come up here and suggest something about my children. Now, please go sit down. Judge.

You're inappropriate and out of line. Clearly, emotions were running high in that courtroom. And of course, there's the question of whether or not the judge should have acted the way that she did, is that judicial temperament, should she have allowed victim impact statements to address the defense lawyers and the jury? Typically, we don't see that, right? We don't usually see that. We see the statements directed towards the defendant. But then again, maybe the victims, maybe they should have had a chance to say whatever they want to say. Maybe they should have had a chance to say whatever they want to say. The law does give a lot of leeway for them to say what they want to say. So should the judge have blown up at the defense and ordered them to the back of the courtroom? These are all outstanding questions at the moment. And again, we could focus on that at a later time. And we could also do probably a full two-hour show on all of these really powerful and poignant statements that were delivered by each person in that courtroom. But I thought I would end with this, the statement of Anne Ramsey, the mother of 17-year-old victim, Helena Ramsey. And as you'll hear, she recounts and kind of transports us back to the horror of that day. But she also explains how her family's situation and experience was very different.

I lost Helena, my daughter, on my birthday. And we should have been out celebrating and laughing and enjoying dinner, just doing the usual birthday celebrations. And we spent, instead we spent hours fruitlessly searching nearby hospitals for Helena because we were told that she was injured. Someone had mistaken her for Samantha Grady, which was often the case. So we thought she was injured,

so we braced ourselves for the worst. Then we went to the Broward, North Broward General Hospital, the main hospital. and we asked for our daughter I mean the whole family was searching for our daughter and when we were at the hospital just by looking at the response we knew they knew our daughter had died

but they sent us to the Marriott they sent us to the Marriott Centre and we feel that they should have told us at the hospital because the hospital is equipped with conference rooms, chapels, equipped to tell people the passing of their loved ones. Instead, we were sent to the marriott. And let me tell you, we were waiting there for hours and hours, listening to the screams and the house. listening to the screams and the howling of all the other families. All of my family was there that night.

You were in the hospital. You were being taken care of while our loved ones lay dead. I was asked by a reporter, would the shooter have been killed if he was black? And I had to stand there and think, think about that. I had to think about that because it's not that simple. The shooter, if he was black, would not have made it past the gate because that's the response. It's an aggressive response. He would have been stopped before he entered the gate. So I couldn't have said he would have been shot. No, I can say the response would have been different. And this is how we are treated. Same with the Broward schools.

My daughter didn't get her acknowledgement. Same with the Broward Sheriff's Office. My family, all of my family, were there until 3 a.m. While you were in the hospital. And after all of these statements, the judge imposed the sentence. But before she did, she did have some parting words for everyone. And I can't help but think of how I would behave or respond if I were in your shoes. And the way that you have grieved so gracefully and have shown extraordinary restraint throughout this process is something that I've never.

ever seen. And as a group of people, you are so strong and so united that if anything good came out of this event, I feel seeing you, I can know that you are all going to be okay because you have each other. And after the judge imposed the sentence, Cruz was taken away, his defense attorneys left the courtroom, and the victims actually waited in line in the courtroom to give the judge a hug. What an ending to an absolutely incredibly sad and devastating case. And thanks so much everybody for joining us here on Sidebar. Please subscribe on Apple podcast, Spotify, YouTube, wherever you get your podcast. I'm Jesse Weber. Speak to you next time. episodes of this long crime series, ad free right now on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.