A defense attorney on Monday implored a Florida jury to spare the life of Nikolas Cruz, who killed 17 people in a 2018 high school mass shooting in the city of Parkland, citing brain damage linked to fetal drug and alcohol exposure as reason not to impose the death penalty.
Cruz, 23, pleaded guilty last October to committing premeditated murder at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, about 30 miles north of Fort Lauderdale, in one of the deadliest school shootings in U.S. history. Cruz killed 14 students and three staff members.
Melisa McNeil, Cruz’s lead public defender, told the 12 Broward County jurors that he should receive life in prison without parole due to mitigating factors including lifelong developmental delays and mental-health disorders that arose from his biological mother’s drug and alcohol abuse during pregnancy….