UPDATE: Nikolas Cruz pled guilty to seventeen counts of first degree murder in the Parkland school shooting case. The case will now proceed to the penalty phase.
Rumpole says: Never plead guilty. As our old bookie client Pollo Pete used to say "Never admit to nuttin". But every rule has an exception (except our rule that we no longer accept cases in Broward). From the defense standpoint, they wanted to proceed to a penalty phase without a jury having received all the evidence in the guilt phase. Short circuiting the trial appeared their best attempt at that.
The Broward SAO (no legal geniuses they) will not be deterred and will just put all their guilt evidence on during the penalty phase.
The final analysis: the defense gains a slight edge in proceeding to a penalty phase being able to argue to the jury about having spared the shooting victims and parents a trial. It's a slight gain, but in cases like these, sometimes that's all you can get.
Item: Anders Brievik shot and killed 69 people at a youth camp in Norway in 2011. Previously he killed 8 people with a car bomb. With conflicting psychiatric opinions about schizophrenia, he was sentenced to a "commitment" which in Norway meant a minimum of 10 years, with a review at 21 years. His sentence can be indefinite. But Norway allows for the understanding of psychiatric illness and treatment and the possibility (ala John Hinkley which we examined in a prior post) of release. Cruz has no possibility of release other than a certain former President being elected Governor of Florida and commuting his sentence based on conspiracy theories the tragic shooting never occurred.
The defense world is buzzing over whether the defendant in the infamous and tragic Broward school shooting is going to plead open to the court today.
The defense strategy from day one was to offer a plea in exchange for a waiver of the death penalty. "No deal" said the Prince Of Darkness (former SA Mike Satz) who somehow remains on the case although he retired.
The hearing is at 10-10:30 ish in Broweird. We will be monitoring it from our Peloton Bike.
Topic for the weekend- your favoourite Peloton instructors. Hannah Frankson is ours. Jenn Sherman is second. Some guy named Rad is our favourite for strength classes.
15 comments:
Sometimes you simply cannot get around the death penalty. This is one of those times. 99% of judges would sentence him to death. I am against the death penalty but, I would give him death in this case. Nothing can forgive what that horrible jerk did.
Judge Betsy Alvarez-Zane is very nice but I think time slows down in her courtroom. Takes hours to call a case and every calendar is at least 90 mins behind schedule. She needs some help in there
Why plea guilty if there is nothing to gain by it? Please explain
Trial is a slow guilty plea. By pleading guilty, you can argue remorse and acceptance of responsibilty. Jury probably would not care, but you have a chance. No chance after contesting facts at a trial
11:03 because your goal is avoiding death and you hope that by pleading guilty and admitting fault and making the portion of the case before the jury all about mitigation, that you can convince a juror to spare your client's life, as they see he has done all he now can do to avoid further trauma to the victims and families.
To try to avoid weeks of graphic and absolutely horrible testimony of the murders …
If this scumbag does not deserve the death penalty, who does?
You plead guilty for very strategic reasons …the jury will hear and see the dramatic evidence once rather than twice. The acceptance of responsibility may impact some of the jurors. There are a lot of very gruesome and disturbing evidence above and beyond what has been released to the public. I think it’s a prudent move
The pleas will come with no conditions and prosecutors still plan to seek the death penalty.
Criminal defense attorney and former Miami-Dade prosecutor Mark Eiglarsh — who is not involved with this case — said the defense clearly sees advantages in entering a guilty plea.
“The public defenders who are representing Cruz are doing this for one reason and one reason only — because they believe it’s in Cruz’s best interest,” he said. “They believe then that it increases his chances that he would get life as opposed to death.
“There’s arguments that they could make in the second phase, the penalty phase. They could say, ‘Look, he accepted responsibility for what he did. We didn’t put you through a long trial.’ They also, candidly, are trying to minimize the amount of gore and details, evidence of a horrid nature of this offense. And that works to their benefit.”
https://www.local10.com/news/local/2021/10/15/watch-live-nikolas-cruz-expected-to-plead-guilty-to-parkland-school-massacre/
Rumpole. The news is reporting that he only plead guilty to the BLEO counts today. He plans on pleading guilty next Wednesday to the 17 murder charges and 17 more attempted murder charges. You may want to tweak your headline.
Cap
FAKE NEWS
Biden calling for criminal prosecution of his political opponents. Thank goodness we no longer have bad orange man and have saved our democracy from darkness...
Can't u email each other in private ? 😂
Clarence Darrow pled his clients guilty in the famous Leopold and Loeb murder case in Chicago and then convinced the Judge (no jury involved) to spare them from the death penalty.
7:43:00 PM - there is a difference between declining to block a prosecution just because of the individual’s prior rank or place in society and prosecuting one’s opponents because they are their political opponents. The fact that you cannot tell the difference between the two is troubling.
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