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FORT LAUDERDALE (CBSMiami/AP) — Defense attorneys for confessed Parkland shooter Nikolas Cruz are seeking a hold successful his proceedings regarding the onslaught of a Broward jailhouse defender backmost successful November of 2018.
Jury enactment is scheduled to statesman Monday.
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In an exigency motion, they said Cruz’s pb lawyer is earnestly sick and has been hospitalized. In their filing, they said erstwhile they advised adjunct authorities lawyer Maria Schneider of the concern she indicated she would person nary objection to continuing the case. The defence said successful a league telephone with Court, they were denied a continuance.
In denying the motion, this Court cited respective reasons, including that the lawsuit had been ongoing for weeks, determination are respective “competent” lawyers connected the “defense team” that tin beryllium successful connected the proceedings with co-counsel, and the pb counsel’s betterment could instrumentality overmuch longer than the Court is consenting to hold to commencement the trial.
Cruz, a erstwhile Stoneman Douglas student, brawled with Sgt. Raymond Beltran aft being jailed connected charges of sidesplitting 14 students and 3 unit members and wounding 17 others. No day has been acceptable for the execution trial, which has been delayed by the pandemic and arguments implicit witnesses and evidence. It whitethorn commencement successful the adjacent fewer months.
“The accused murderer who took our children’s lives is intelligibly convulsive and took that retired connected a guard. He needs to look the justness strategy for that,” said Tony Montalto, president of Stand With Parkland, a radical comprised of victims’ families. His 14-year-old daughter, Gina, died successful the shooting.
Cruz, 23, faces a imaginable 15-year condemnation if convicted of attempted transgression artillery connected a instrumentality enforcement serviceman and 3 lesser charges. Cruz volition get either decease oregon beingness successful situation without parole if helium is aboriginal recovered blameworthy of first-degree murder, but this proceedings inactive has relevance. If Cruz is convicted of attacking Beltran, prosecutors tin reason that is an aggravating origin erstwhile they question his execution during the punishment signifier of his execution proceedings if convicted.
“If that is entered arsenic an aggravating factor, it volition beryllium hard for that not to beryllium successful the backmost of the jury’s mind,” said Mark Dobson, a prof astatine Nova Southeastern University’s instrumentality schoolhouse and a erstwhile Florida prosecutor.
Prosecutors declined important comment, lone saying successful a connection that “the jailhouse video and grounds successful the lawsuit talk for themselves.”
Cruz’s nationalist defenders declined comment, saying they don’t privation to further traumatize the shooting victims’ families by discussing their client.
Cruz’s attorneys are expected to reason that Beltran mistreated Cruz antecedently and provoked the Nov. 13, 2018, brawl, which occurred wrong a Broward County jailhouse recreation country and was captured connected a soundless information video.
According to tribunal records, Cruz’s pb attorney, Melisa McNeill, had complained six weeks earlier the combat to the Broward Sheriff’s Office astir Beltran’s attraction of Cruz. No details of the alleged mistreatment person been released, but his attorneys said astatine a caller tribunal proceeding that Beltran is the lone defender they person ever complained about.
Cruz’s attorneys accidental the sheriff’s bureau erased video of the 3 hours Cruz and Beltran spent unneurotic earlier the combat — adjacent though they asked wrong a time that it beryllium preserved and were told it would be.
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The preserved video begins a mates minutes earlier the brawl. It shows Cruz walking unsocial successful circles with his caput down astir tables with attached benches. He is dressed successful an orangish jailhouse jumpsuit, a achromatic long-sleeve undershirt and sandals. Beltran is sitting astatine a array successful the corner.
Suddenly, Cruz stops astir 10 feet (3 meters) from Beltran and the 2 look to speech words — Beltran told investigators helium asked Cruz not to resistance his feet and harm his sandals.
Cruz flips some mediate fingers astatine Beltran and past charges the guard, who stands up to support himself. Cruz, who weighs astir 130 pounds (60 kilograms), throws the larger Beltran to the ground, earlier the defender is capable to flip him and concisely pin him. Cruz grabs Beltran’s stun weapon and they combat implicit it arsenic it goes off, seemingly jolting neither, earlier the defender wrests it away.
Cruz escapes Beltran’s grasp and the 2 instrumentality boxing stances. Cruz punches Beltran successful the enarthrosis earlier the defender hits Cruz successful the head, staggering him.
Beltran past rearms his stun weapon and points it astatine Cruz, who had sat connected a bench. Cruz lies look down connected the crushed and is handcuffed. The combat lasted astir precisely a minute. Neither was earnestly hurt.
Because of Cruz’s infamy successful South Florida, assemblage enactment is scheduled to past 3 days — successful a emblematic jailhouse artillery proceedings with a suspect the nationalist doesn’t know, it would apt instrumentality a fewer hours. The tribunal plans to surface 400 radical to spot six jurors positive alternates. The emblematic excavation for jailhouse artillery trials and akin felonies is 22, according to The Florida Bar.
Cruz’s attorneys volition privation to destruct immoderate candidates who can’t abstracted their cognition of the Stoneman Douglas massacre from the lone considerations jurors are expected to marque during this trial: Did Cruz onslaught Beltran and, if so, was helium provoked? Testimony astir the killings volition not beryllium permitted arsenic that is irrelevant to the battle complaint and would beryllium prejudicial.
Once the assemblage is selected, the remainder of the proceedings is lone expected to past 1 to 3 days.
The execution proceedings is expected to past months. Circuit Judge Elizabeth Scherer has been holding predominant hearings successful caller weeks to see issues that indispensable beryllium resolved earlier it begins.
“The wheels of justness grind dilatory and that is particularly existent with our radical of families,” Montalto said.
Cruz’s attorneys person said helium would plead blameworthy to 17 murders successful speech for a beingness sentence. Prosecutors person declined the offer, saying this is simply a lawsuit that deserves a decease sentence.
(© Copyright 2021 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
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