RIGHT TO LIFE END DEATH PENALTY
Psychologist: School shooter suffered fetal alcohol damage
Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooter Nikolas Cruz, right, sits with Assistant Public Defender Nawal Bashimam at the defense table during the penalty phase of his trial at the Broward County Courthouse in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., Monday, Sept. 12, 2022. Cruz pleaded guilty to murdering 17 students and staff members in 2018 at Parkland's high school.
The trial is only to determine if the 23-year-old is sentenced to death or life without parole.
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — Attorneys for Florida school shooter Nikolas Cruz began building their argument Monday that his birth mother's alcohol abuse left him with severe behavioral problems that eventually led to his 2018 murder of 17 people at Parkland's Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.
Paul Connor, a Seattle-area neuropsychologist, said medical records and testimony by prior witnesses show that Brenda Woodard drank and used cocaine throughout much of her pregnancy before Cruz's birth in 1998. Woodard, a Fort Lauderdale prostitute, gave up the baby immediately after to his adoptive parents, Lynda and Roger Cruz. Woodard died last year.
Connor, testifying by Zoom, told jurors that people with fetal alcohol spectrum disorder show at a young age problems with motor skills, impulse control, socializing and paying attention — problems previous defense testimony showed Cruz had.
Cruz's preschool teachers testified he couldn't run without falling or use utensils. He was diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder as a young child and teachers testified that he was extremely anxious and had trouble making friends.
At 5, tests showed Cruz had impairments in 10 intellectual categories including memory, reasoning, language and impulsivity, Connor said. Court records and earlier testimony showed he would have frequent outbursts in class and at home. By middle school, he was making threats.
Connor said he measured Cruz's IQ at 83, which he said matches the slightly below average intelligence many people with fetal alcohol issues often score. He said IQ tests conducted throughout Cruz's life found similar results, including one done recently by a prosecution expert.
Under cross-examination by lead prosecutor Mike Satz, Connor conceded he is not board certified in his field but said such certification is voluntary and only a state license is required to practice. He also conceded that he almost always testifies on behalf of the defense in fetal alcohol cases, not prosecutors. He will continue testifying Tuesday.
Cruz, 23, pleaded guilty in October to murdering 14 students and three staff members and wounding 17 others as he stalked a three-story classroom building with an AR-15-style semiautomatic rifle on Valentine's Day 2018. His trial is only to decide whether the former Stoneman Douglas student is sentenced to death or life without parole. For the seven-man, five-woman jury to impose a death sentence, the vote must be unanimous.
Satz finished his primary case last month. He played security videos of the shooting and showed the rifle Cruz used. Teachers and students testified about watching others die. He showed graphic autopsy and crime scene photos and took jurors to the fenced-off building, which remains blood-stained and bullet-pocked. Parents and spouses gave tearful and angry statements about their loss.
In an attempt to counter that, assistant public defender Melisa McNeill and her team have made Cruz’s history their case’s centerpiece, hoping at least one juror will vote for life.
After the defense concludes its case in the coming weeks, the prosecution will present a rebuttal case before the jury's deliberations begin.
Prosecutors push expert witness to concede testimony was incomplete picture of Stoneman Douglas shooter
David Fleshler and Rafael Olmeda, South Florida Sun Sentinel
Tue, September 13, 2022
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Parkland shooter Nikolas Cruz showed no lack of mental competence as he planned and carried out his attack on Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, a Broward prosecutor said Tuesday.
Assistant State Attorney Mike Satz reviewed the gunman’s actions while cross-examining neurologist Paul Connor, who testified Monday that Cruz lacked the ability to quickly shift the focus of his attention and had trouble solving problems and using his working memory.
Defense lawyers are portraying Cruz as the neurologically damaged victim of his mother’s heavy drinking, part of their bid to persuade jurors to spare him from the death penalty.
But in cross-examination Tuesday, Satz got Connor to concede that many of Cruz’s neurological test scores were in the normal range. Those scores were not discussed during Connor’s direct testimony Monday.
Satz took aim at a graph prepared by Connor headed “Neuropsychological testing of Nikolas Cruz Deficits in nine of 11 domains assessed.” Under questioning from Satz, Connor acknowledged that the chart only contained results of a fraction of the tests he administered and that many of those tests contained average scores, in contrast to the below-average scores highlighted in his chart.
“Did you ask the defendant about the 17 murders committed by the defendant at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on Feb. 14, 2018?”
”I did not,” Connor responded.
“You saw how purposeful his actions were?” Satz asked.
”I watched the video,” Connor said. “I was not doing it to interpret it.”
”Did you see how goal-directed it was?” Satz asked. “So you can’t say whether he appeared on the video to be goal-directed and dedicated to his task?“
”I have no opinion on that,” Connor said.
Kenneth Lyons Jones, a pediatrician and one of the first two doctors in the country to identify fetal alcohol syndrome as a medical condition, was brought in Tuesday to testify with even more precision about Cruz’s ailments. He said Cruz does not have the syndrome, which has very specific characteristics, but Cruz does suffer from a related condition called alcohol related neurodevelopmental disorder.
Both fall under what Jones identified as fetal alcohol spectrum disorder. People suffering from ARND tend to be incapable of planning and organizing their thoughts, Jones said during cross examination. “I think that he lost control of himself, without any question,” he said.
But his testimony gave Satz an opening to remind the jury of just how much planning went into the Stoneman Douglas mass shooting.
Satz brought up the series of internet searches Cruz conducted prior to the massacre, again attempting to indicate a capacity for planning that would contradict the experts’ assessment of Cruz’s mental capacity. The searches included information about the mass shootings at Columbine and in Las Vegas and Aurora, Colorado.
Jones said he was unaware of any of those searches.
Jurors will later be asked to weigh the conflicting testimony about Cruz’s mental health issues to determine whether the death penalty is an appropriate punishment for the 17 murders he committed. The defense is raising fetal alcohol spectrum disorder as a possible mitigating factor the jury can consider in choosing a life sentence instead of condemning Cruz to die.
Testimony is scheduled to resume Wednesday morning.
David Fleshler and Rafael Olmeda, South Florida Sun Sentinel
Tue, September 13, 2022
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Parkland shooter Nikolas Cruz showed no lack of mental competence as he planned and carried out his attack on Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, a Broward prosecutor said Tuesday.
Assistant State Attorney Mike Satz reviewed the gunman’s actions while cross-examining neurologist Paul Connor, who testified Monday that Cruz lacked the ability to quickly shift the focus of his attention and had trouble solving problems and using his working memory.
Defense lawyers are portraying Cruz as the neurologically damaged victim of his mother’s heavy drinking, part of their bid to persuade jurors to spare him from the death penalty.
But in cross-examination Tuesday, Satz got Connor to concede that many of Cruz’s neurological test scores were in the normal range. Those scores were not discussed during Connor’s direct testimony Monday.
Satz took aim at a graph prepared by Connor headed “Neuropsychological testing of Nikolas Cruz Deficits in nine of 11 domains assessed.” Under questioning from Satz, Connor acknowledged that the chart only contained results of a fraction of the tests he administered and that many of those tests contained average scores, in contrast to the below-average scores highlighted in his chart.
“Did you ask the defendant about the 17 murders committed by the defendant at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on Feb. 14, 2018?”
”I did not,” Connor responded.
“You saw how purposeful his actions were?” Satz asked.
”I watched the video,” Connor said. “I was not doing it to interpret it.”
”Did you see how goal-directed it was?” Satz asked. “So you can’t say whether he appeared on the video to be goal-directed and dedicated to his task?“
”I have no opinion on that,” Connor said.
Kenneth Lyons Jones, a pediatrician and one of the first two doctors in the country to identify fetal alcohol syndrome as a medical condition, was brought in Tuesday to testify with even more precision about Cruz’s ailments. He said Cruz does not have the syndrome, which has very specific characteristics, but Cruz does suffer from a related condition called alcohol related neurodevelopmental disorder.
Both fall under what Jones identified as fetal alcohol spectrum disorder. People suffering from ARND tend to be incapable of planning and organizing their thoughts, Jones said during cross examination. “I think that he lost control of himself, without any question,” he said.
But his testimony gave Satz an opening to remind the jury of just how much planning went into the Stoneman Douglas mass shooting.
Satz brought up the series of internet searches Cruz conducted prior to the massacre, again attempting to indicate a capacity for planning that would contradict the experts’ assessment of Cruz’s mental capacity. The searches included information about the mass shootings at Columbine and in Las Vegas and Aurora, Colorado.
Jones said he was unaware of any of those searches.
Jurors will later be asked to weigh the conflicting testimony about Cruz’s mental health issues to determine whether the death penalty is an appropriate punishment for the 17 murders he committed. The defense is raising fetal alcohol spectrum disorder as a possible mitigating factor the jury can consider in choosing a life sentence instead of condemning Cruz to die.
Testimony is scheduled to resume Wednesday morning.
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