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That too. The odds are 99% that he won't get the death penalty. But if somehow it happens and he does get a death sentence, then the odds would be 99% that he will never be executed. The trial is a waste of time and money.
This is Florida not Oregon or CA. Odds are pretty good he'll get his sentence carried out.
On February 14, 2018, 19-year-old Nikolas Cruz opened fire on students and staff at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, murdering 17 people and injuring 17 others. Cruz, a former student at the school, fled the scene on foot by blending in with other students, and was arrested without incident about an hour later in nearby Coral Springs. He pled guilty to 17 counts of premeditated first-degree murder and 17 counts of attempted first-degree murder. Police and prosecutors investigated "a pattern of disciplinary issues and unnerving behavior."
The killing spree is the deadliest high school shooting in United States history, surpassing the Columbine High School massacre that killed 15, including the perpetrators, in Colorado in April 1999. The shooting came at a period of heightened public support for gun control that followed mass shootings in Paradise, Nevada, and in Sutherland Springs, Texas, in October and November 2017.
Students at Parkland founded Never Again MSD, an advocacy group that lobbies for gun control. On March 9, Governor Rick Scott signed a bill that implemented new restrictions to Florida's gun laws and also allowed for the arming of teachers who were properly trained and the hiring of school resource officers.
The Broward County Sheriff's Office received widespread criticism for its handling of the police response, both for not following up multiple warnings about Cruz despite a lengthy record of threatening behavior, and for staying outside the school instead of immediately confronting him. This led to the resignations of several police officers who responded to the scene, and the removal of Sheriff Scott Israel. A commission appointed by then-Governor Scott to investigate the shooting condemned the police inaction and urged school districts across the state to adopt greater measures of security.
On October 20, 2021, Cruz pleaded guilty to all charges and apologized for his actions. Sentencing was expected in January 2022. The sentencing was later delayed to February 2022, and was then delayed again to April 2022.
This is one of the reasons that jury trials have to go. It's not reasonable to expect private citizens to endure financial difficulties and other stress from having to sit on juries for long periods of time. It's also not reasonable to expect private citizens who are not trained in the law to understand complicated legal defences and deliver legal decisions. We have judges with law degrees who are more than capable of delivering a fair verdict better than any jury can. If the judge for some unlikely reason is not fair, then there is an appeals process to deal with that. Juries have long outlived their usefulness.
So, you'd like to see a constitutional amendment that does away with the right to a jury trial? While you're at it, are there any other rights in the constitution that you'd like to get rid of?
So, you'd like to see a constitutional amendment that does away with the right to a jury trial? While you're at it, are there any other rights in the constitution that you'd like to get rid of?
I am a lawyer and I agree it would require a constitutional amendment, but I don't think this poster is entirely off base. I have heard too many people over too many years complain about having to serve on a jury. I have heard of legions of stories from people who told some tale in court to try and come up with an excuse not to serve. Judges in the district in which I practice are tired of dealing with hordes of people who do not want to serve. People who do not want to serve are unlikely to be good jurors. They are likely to be people who want to get the whole thing over with as soon as possible whether the correct decision is rendered or not.
Maybe the best option is to eliminate jury trials in most cases. Judges are trained to decide cases and in my observation do so fairly most of the time. An appeals process exists that may give some people relief who believe a verdict rendered by a judge was unfair. Other cases in our system are resolved through alternative dispute resolution mechanisms like arbitration all the time. Most of the people who utilize these processes are satisfied.
Just because jury trials were the way we resolved simple disputes in a largely rural country in 1789 doesn't mean there is something absolutely necessary about jury trials in particularly complex cases. I cannot imagine resolving complicated antitrust, trademark, patent, and copyright matters by a jury trial. Yet, that is exactly what happens in many situations today.
It is something worthy of discussion rather than sarcasm.
This is Florida not Oregon or CA. Odds are pretty good he'll get his sentence carried out.
They haven't executed anyone in 3 years.
Florida is out of the drugs and has been for about 6 years. They tried using others, which.. Has been problematic elsewhere.
Don't get me wrong. Florida certainly would WANT to off him quickly, it's just whether they'll be able to.
Quite frankly, i've not understood why they don't just toss most of these people a bag of heroin in their cells and let the problem resolve itself.
But, yes.. I know. It's like you find the guy you're about to execute hanging in his cell, you rush him to the hospital to save his life so you can execute him..
This is Florida not Oregon or CA. Odds are pretty good he'll get his sentence carried out.
That is not reality. You don't understand odds very well.
43% of Florida residents favor death penalty.
57% of Florida residents favor life without parole.
The defence is not going to allow the prosecution to stack the jury with jurors only from the 43%. That would be professional incompetence. But even if the defense did a really terrible job at picking the jurors, all they have to do is get one juror from the 57% and a death sentence becomes an impossibility. The prosecutor would have to have 100% support from the jury to win a death sentence. But the odds are that he will have only about 43%. Not even close to enough.
Quote:
A recent poll of Florida residents showed that 57.7 percent favor life imprisonment without parole over the death penalty for persons convicted of first-degree murder.
Researcher Craig Haney asked a representative group of nearly 500 jury-eligible Floridians to choose between two legally available punishments for first-degree murder: the death penalty or life imprisonment without parole. The overall preference for life without parole was consistent across racial groups, genders, educational levels, and religious affiliations.
So, you'd like to see a constitutional amendment that does away with the right to a jury trial? While you're at it, are there any other rights in the constitution that you'd like to get rid of?
What's wrong with updating the Constitution? I think that most people would agree that the Thirteenth Amendment taking away people's rights to own slaves was necessary and probably the best thing that ever happened to the Constitution. Change is good and necessary to keep things up to date. The US Constitution is the most outdated constitution in the world. It's filled with lots of outdated garbage that should be removed.
Everybody loves the right to a jury trial, but the majority of people do everything in their power to get out of serving on a jury.
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