The Parkland shooting massacre took place in a South Florida high school and left 17 people, 14 of which were students between the ages of 14 and 18.
The shooter, 24-year-old Nikolas Cruz, has been in and out of court since the tragedy happened.
Judge Elizabeth Scherer oversaw the majority of the trial.
Due to the Covid-19 Pandemic, there had been many delays in getting Cruz to court, but when he finally got there the man did own up to his actions and plead guilty. Doing this saved the victims’ families from having to sit through what would surely have been a very lengthy and harrowing trial.
While a trial was not needed, there was still the matter of Cruz’s sentencing.
During sentencing, the judge takes many different aspects into account, and the court listens to victim impact statements made by the family of the deceased. The judge then puts the question of sentencing to a jury of the accused peers, and it is up to them to decide on the appropriate punishment.
At some point during this sentencing period, the defense council was spotted joking and laughing, as well as ‘flipping the bird’ towards the prosecution lawyers.
Judge Scherer was not amused by this horrible display by supposed professionals, and she took no time in calling them out on the behavior. She also said that it was totally unnecessary and unprofessional for the defense to continue to bring up the fact that they had been chastised.
“What you are doing right now,” says the judge, “is highlighting something and making more of a spectacle so if your office, in general, does not want to facilitate or incite violence, then we need to just sit down and move on. That’s it.”
The defense attorney who continued to bring up his displeasure with the judge’s reaction, even after the incident had long since finished, seemed to want to create an even bigger mess than his colleagues had created. He tells that judge that while he has thick skin and can take what she was saying, he would not stand by and listen to her disrespect his children.
Judge Schere was at a total loss for where this had come from, she’d never mentioned his kids and actually stated that she had no idea he even had any kids.
It is unknown if the jury was in the room when this interaction had taken place or if they had already gone off to discuss the case and make their recommendations, they were there however, to see the original spectacle. The death penalty was on the table for Nikolas Cruz and the jury took careful consideration of all the facts before coming to their final conclusion.
In the end, the Parkland shooter was sentenced not to death, but to 17 separate life sentences with no chance for parole. He will die in prison.
After everything was said and done, Judge Elizabeth Scherer said to the families of the murder victims, “If I could take away your pain or carry your pain for you just for 5 minutes so that you could breathe, I would. I can’t even imagine what you go through each day.”.
Watch the Judge call out the bad behavior in the video below.
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