A few of the speakers urged state lawmakers to no longer require a unanimous jury to impose capital punishment. Before 2016, Florida was one of only three states that allowed juries to recommend death with a simple 7-to-5 majority. That changed after a series of court rulings, including one by the United States Supreme Court and another by the Florida Supreme Court. The unanimity requirement was signed into law in 2017 by the governor at the time, Rick Scott, a Republican.
However, in 2020, the state’s high court, which had shifted to the right, said that a unanimous recommendation was no longer needed. Lawmakers made no changes to the law. Since last month’s life sentence for Mr. Cruz, however, Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, has said he would like the Legislature to revisit the law.
Tony Montalto, whose 14-year-old daughter, Gina Montalto, was killed, urged lawmakers to allow a simple majority or a supermajority jury vote for death.
“This would be more fair to the victims,” he said.
Max Schachter, whose 14-year-old son, Alex Schachter, was killed, said he would also lobby for juries to be allowed to consider comments from victims’ relatives in their deliberations. Over four days during the trial, relatives spoke in deeply personal terms about how losing their loved ones shattered their lives. But the judge had to tell the jurors that those statements could not be considered as evidence in reaching their verdict.
“It’s not right,” Mr. Schachter said, “and I will work to fix this injustice for the next family.”
Also killed in the shooting were Scott Beigel, 35; Martin Duque, 14; Nicholas Dworet, 17; Aaron Feis, 37; Jaime Guttenberg, 14; Luke Hoyer, 15; Cara Loughran, 14; Joaquin Oliver, 17; Alaina Petty, 14; Meadow Pollack, 18; Helena Ramsay, 17; Carmen Schentrup, 16, and Peter Wang, 15. Seventeen other people also suffered gunshot wounds.
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