Current:Home > reviewsParkland shooting judge criticizes shooter’s attorneys during talk to law students -WealthSync Hub
Parkland shooting judge criticizes shooter’s attorneys during talk to law students
View
Date:2025-04-16 14:46:14
MIAMI (AP) — The former judge who presided over the trial of the 2018 Parkland high school mass murderer sharply criticized his public defenders during a presentation to Miami law students Thursday, saying they acted unprofessionally and crossed several lines while representing him.
Former Broward County Circuit Judge Elizabeth Scherer told the Florida International University law students that the attorneys “lost their minds” as they defended Nikolas Cruz during his 2022 trial for the killing of 14 students and three staff members at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on Feb. 14, 2018.
She said she had been friendly with Cruz’s lead attorney, assistant public defender Melisa McNeill, and members of her team before the case, but during four years of pretrial motions, three months of jury selection and the three-month trial “they lost their perspective.” She and McNeill frequently clashed both before and at trial.
Scherer said members of the defense talked, passed notes, used their computer printer and brushed their hair while prosecution witnesses were testifying.
She did not mention another incident in which one attorney, during a recess and out of the presence of the jury, raised her middle finger at a robotic camera that was broadcasting the trial live. It was focused on the defense table, and Cruz’s team felt that infringed on his attorney-client privilege.
“This consumed them to to a point where they started doing things and acting ways that I had never seen before from any defense attorney that I had ever dealt with,” Scherer said.
Scherer, 48, resigned from the bench in June 2023, eight months after sentencing Cruz to life in prison without parole. She had no choice in the sentencing, since at the time Florida law required a unanimous vote from the jury for the death penalty to be imposed and Cruz’s panel split 9-3 in favor. Florida soon after changed the law to allow a death sentence if eight or more jurors recommend it.
Cruz, 26, pleaded guilty to the murders in 2021. He is serving his sentence at an undisclosed prison
Broward County Public Defender Gordon Weekes declined to comment Thursday about Scherer’s criticism of McNeill and her team. After the trial, the state’s Judicial Qualifications Commission found that Scherer violated several rules governing judicial conduct in her actions toward Cruz’s attorneys.
The 15-member commission, composed of judges, lawyers and civilians, ruled last year that Scherer failed to curtail “vitriolic statements” directed at the attorneys by the victims’ families and sometimes allowed “her emotions to overcome her judgement.”
The commission also criticized her for publicly hugging the prosecutors and victims’ families after the trial. Scherer said Thursday that she also offered to hug McNeill and her team but was rebuffed.
“In limited instances during this unique and lengthy case, Judge Scherer allowed her emotions to overcome her judgement,” the commission said in its report to the Florida Supreme Court, which later reprimanded her. The Supreme Court also removed her from another murder case she was overseeing because one of the Cruz prosecutors she hugged was handling it.
Scherer, a former Broward prosecutor, told the students that while she might do some things differently, overall she thinks she did a good job overseeing the Cruz trial and does not regret the hugs.
“Not one person on that commission has ever tried a case like this,” Scherer said. Some of the commission’s judges and attorneys haven’t done trial work, she added, “much less a case where you have 17 families who have spent a big part of a 4 1/2 years with you.”
“I regret that it (the hugging) was found to be inappropriate,” Scherer said.
She announced her resignation from the bench shortly before the commission’s findings but said that had nothing to do with her decision. She said Thursday that she told her senior judge in 2018 that she would see the Cruz case through its conclusion but then likely leave to seek other opportunities and a higher salary.
Scherer now is a partner in the civil law firm that her father founded and has a legal affairs podcast that debuts Sunday. She is also in negotiations to host a “Judge Judy”-type television show.
Scherer said that on the morning after the shooting, she had a premonition she would be assigned the case by the court’s computer system. Later that day, she got it.
It was her first death penalty case, and some critics said she didn’t have enough experience to handle one of that complexity. On Thursday she said no other judge handling criminal cases in Broward County at that time had overseen a death penalty trial either. She had been a judge for almost six years when she was assigned the case.
She said that while it was hard to remain stoic, particularly when victims’ family members gave statements, she knew she had to.
“The men judges don’t cry. This female judge was not going to cry,” she said.
Scherer said she believes Cruz is a “sociopath” and feels no remorse for the killings or the pain he caused to the families and the Parkland community.
“Not one single bit,” she said.
___
This story has been updated to correct that Scherer did not mention an incident involving a defense attorney.
veryGood! (226)
Related
- Intellectuals vs. The Internet
- Missing man found decomposed in closet at Florida nursing home, family alleges: Reports
- Americans who have a job are feeling secure. Not so for many who are looking for one
- Orlando Bloom Has the Perfect Response to Katy Perry's NSFW Comments About Sex and Housework
- Nearly half of US teens are online ‘constantly,’ Pew report finds
- Teen arraigned on attempted murder in shooting of San Francisco 49ers rookie says he is very sorry
- New To Self-Tan? I Tested and Ranked the Most Popular Self-Tanners and There’s a Clear Winner
- Broadway 2024: See which Hollywood stars and new productions will hit New York
- Meet first time Grammy nominee Charley Crockett
- Why isn't Rashee Rice suspended? What we know about Chiefs WR's legal situation
Ranking
- Intel's stock did something it hasn't done since 2022
- You Have 24 Hours To Get 50% Off the Viral Benefit Fan Fest Mascara & More Sephora Deals
- Adele Pulls Hilarious Revenge Prank on Tabloids By Creating Her Own Newspaper
- Alaska law saying only doctors can provide abortions is unconstitutional, judge rules
- Nearly half of US teens are online ‘constantly,’ Pew report finds
- Wildlife trafficking ring killed at least 118 eagles, prosecutors say
- Surfer Carissa Moore was pregnant competing in Paris Olympics
- Biden promotes administration’s rural electrification funding in Wisconsin
Recommendation
NHL in ASL returns, delivering American Sign Language analysis for Deaf community at Winter Classic
Video shows blue heron savoring large rat in New York's Central Park
They made a movie about Trump. Then no one would release it
Nearly 50 people have been killed, injured in K-12 school shootings across the US in 2024
Jorge Ramos reveals his final day with 'Noticiero Univision': 'It's been quite a ride'
Mark Meadows asks judge to move Arizona’s fake elector case to federal court
Ina Garten Says Her Father Was Physically Abusive
Alaska governor vetoes bill requiring insurance cover a year of birth control at a time