FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — The trial to decide the fate of the Parkland mass shooter continued Monday with an expert witness called in to testify about the defendant’s mental impairments, which the defense blames in part on his mother’s drinking while she was pregnant with him.
Neuropsychologist Paul Connor, who examined gunman Nikolas Cruz after the shooting, told jurors the impairment from fetal alcohol syndrome showed up throughout the defendant’s life and demonstrated itself in multiple areas.
Cruz lacked the ability to quickly shift the focus of his attention, Connor said. He couldn’t follow rules or engage in abstract reasoning. He had trouble solving problems and using his working memory.
The deficits, Connor emphasized, were consistent with someone affected by fetal alcohol syndrome.
“This is the type of pattern I expect to see,” Connor said, looking at a chart of Cruz’s declining academic capabilities.
Cruz, 23, is being tried in front of a jury tasked solely with determining whether he deserves to be punished with live in prison or death for the February 2018 murders of 17 students and staff members at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland.
The defendant pleaded guilty to the murders last October, eliminating the defense’s ability to use insanity to explain or excuse his actions. Insanity is difficult to prove in criminal trials, and Cruz almost certainly would not have met the criteria because he knew what he was doing, knew it was wrong and knew the consequences, according to evidence that became public in the months after the mass shooting.
But defense lawyers have raised Cruz’s history of mental illness to convince jurors he should be entitled to enough mercy to spare his life. It would take only one juror’s vote to block the death penalty for Cruz, but that juror would have to decline the death penalty for each of the 17 murders.
In court Monday, Cruz looked down and wrote intently during testimony about his mental capacity. His sensitivity about being perceived as unintelligent pushed him to want to attend Stoneman Douglas, and his resentment toward others who considered him “an idiot” had been a driving factor in the years leading up to the massacre. When he turned 18, he refused services and insisted on attending Stoneman Douglas as a normal student instead of a school better suited to addressing his mental health needs.
Cross-examination of the witness was just getting underway when testimony ended. Prosecutor Mike Satz noted that Connor had spent only five hours with Cruz and that Conner earned more money professionally by testifying for defense lawyers than he did in his clinical practice.
Testimony is scheduled to resume at 9 a.m. Tuesday.
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