Circuit Judge Elizabeth Scherer ruled Monday that she should have questioned potential jurors who said they would not follow the law before she dismissed them.
for a man who murdered 17 people at a Florida high school declared that the process will start over Monday, conceding that she should have questioned 11 potential jurors who said they would not follow the law before she dismissed them.
Prosecutor Carolyn McCann made her argument after the 11 jurors who were improperly dismissed by Scherer two weeks ago weren't told to return to court for more questioning Monday, as had been planned, due to a miscommunication error. Melisa McNeill, Cruz's lead public defender, strongly disagreed with the decision. She said Scherer should wait until next week to see if the 11 jurors returned and could be questioned.
Having to start all over again has been a possibility since Scherer made the error on April 5 during questioning of a group of 60 potential jurors, the fifth of 21 panels that had appeared before the judge, prosecutors and the defense. Scherer, realizing her error, tried to have the jurors returned, but all except one had left the courthouse. She said the Broward County Sheriff's Office would deliver summonses to them, but that was not done for unexplained reasons. Even if all had returned, they still might have been disqualified because they had not been given the order that Scherer gave to other potential jurors to not discuss or read about the case.
The jurors who are selected will decide whether aggravating factors - the multiple deaths, the planning Cruz put into the killings and the cruelty with which they were carried out - outweigh mitigating factors such as the defendant's lifelong mental and emotional problems, possible sexual abuse and the death of his parents.
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