‘One step closer to justice.’ Parkland shooter’s guilty plea ushers in the next phase — life or death?

The Parkland school shooter is a convicted killer now.

The families of the victims, as a rule, do not speak his name. And when he finally addressed them, it was with his back turned. Fine with them. They didn’t much care what he had to say anyway.

Nikolas Cruz, the man who terrorized Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School just minutes before school let out on Valentine’s Day 2018, stood before Broward Circuit Judge Elizabeth Scherer, flanked by his defense lawyers. His head bowed, his shoulders drooping, he declared himself guilty, one by one, of 17 counts of murder and guilty of 17 counts of attempted murder.

He will spend the rest of his life in prison, the judge said. How his life ends is the only legal question that remains. “The maximum penalty is death,” she warned him, which means “you will not come out until you are no longer alive … You are facing a minimum best-case scenario of life in prison. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” he said.

Then prosecutor Mike Satz stood just a few feet to the gunman’s left and gave the judge a step-by-step account of the massacre at Stoneman Douglas. Parents who had just watched the defendant accept legal responsibility for the deaths of their children now listened to Satz describe exactly how and where their deaths happened.

Gina Montalto and Luke Hoyer died together on the first floor of the 1200 building. In court Wednesday, their mothers held hands and watched, unsuccessfully resisting the tears welling up in their eyes.

Tony Montalto, father of Gina, let out an audible sigh when Satz got to her name.

The veteran prosecutor working what may well be his last case recounted every bullet, every murder, every surviving gunshot victim. Nicholas Dworet died from his wounds, Satz said. Alex Dworet survived. Their parents were in the second row. Mitch Dworet comforted his wife Annika. Others touched her shoulder in support.

Athletic director Chris Hixon survived the first shot that hit him and tried to get away, Satz said. The gunman followed him, stood over him, and shot him again. Hixon died.

The courtroom fell silent when Satz was done.

Then the gunman’s lawyer, Assistant Public Defender Melisa McNeill, reminded the judge that the defendant had something to say.

Cruz pulled his mask to the side and spoke, ostensibly to the victims, though he never turned to face them. His face never left the prepared notes on the lectern as he raced through the words.

“I am very sorry for what I did and I have to live with it every day and that if I were to get a second chance I would do everything in my power to try to help others,” he said. “And I am doing this for you and I do not care if you do not believe me, and I love you and I know you don’t believe me but I have to live with this every day and it brings me nightmares and I can’t live with myself sometimes but I try to push through because I know that’s what you guys would want me to do.”

He railed against drugs and racism and violence. He apologized again.

More Top Picks Best Straight Stair Lifts Under 5000 Dollars

His intended audience greeted his words with contempt. They called it an “ugly surprise,” “irrelevant” and “absolutely ridiculous.”

Fred Guttenberg, whose daughter Jaime was murdered on the third floor of the 1200 building, looked down throughout the speech. Others turned to each other in apparent disbelief.

“He’s doing it for our families?” said Tony Montalto, outside the courtroom. “If you wanted to do something for our families, you shouldn’t have killed our loved ones!”

Debbie Hixon, the athletic director’s wife, was equally unimpressed. “I don’t want to hear that he’s sorry or that he wants to do good,” said Hixon, now a Broward School Board member. “He should have thought of that on February 13th. It’s too little too late.”

The killer’s plea for mercy was not greeted warmly.

“Maybe someday we’ll find room in our hearts to forgive him,” said Tom Hoyer, Luke’s father. “But that’s not the same as mercy. I don’t think he deserves mercy.”

Anthony Borges, who survived his physical wounds, dismissed the defendant’s comments as an insincere, transparent effort to get out of the death penalty.

The judge wrapped up Wednesday’s hearing by sentencing Cruz in a separate case — while he was in custody, he attacked a deputy guarding him at the Broward Main Jail in Fort Lauderdale. He was charged with four crimes and pleaded guilty last week. Scherer sentenced him to 26 years in prison for those crimes.

As they left the courtroom, some family members shared their thoughts as others declined to comment.

Tony Montalto said it was difficult being in the same room with the gunman.

“It was probably the most uncomfortable thing — well, second most uncomfortable thing — we’ve ever had to do,” he said. “First was hugging our daughter’s lifeless body … There’s no moving on. There’s moving around the pain we feel every day.”

Guttenberg described the guilty pleas as just “one step closer to justice.” He did not answer other questions, saying he had someplace else to be Wednesday afternoon.

“I’m going to go see my daughter.”

Rafael Olmeda can be reached at [email protected], 954-356-4457 or on Twitter @rolmeda

What comes next?

The case is not over. Broward Circuit Judge Elizabeth Scherer is calling attorneys back into court on Oct. 26 for a hearing to go over a number of motions that were filed and have yet to be resolved. Some are no longer necessary. Others are sure to be the subject of intensified or even renewed debate.

More Top Picks Best E Readers For Kids

Scherer did not pass sentence for the 17 counts of attempted murder, even though the defense concedes life sentences are appropriate under the circumstances. The victims in those cases are survivors who have a legal right to be heard, but most did not attend Wednesday’s hearing. Prosecutor Mike Satz asked the judge to impose all 34 sentences in one hearing, and Scherer agreed.

It will be up to a jury to decide whether Cruz deserves the death penalty. In Florida, the unanimous recommendation is required before a death sentence can be imposed. Jury selection, the judge said, will begin Jan. 4.