(CNN) — The sentencing trial for Parkland Bloodbath Nikolas Cruz can be delayed three days pending Hurricane Ian’s landfall in Florida this week, a choose introduced Tuesday.
The Broward County Courthouse the place Cruz’s trial is being held can be closed Wednesday and Thursday as a result of potential affect of the hurricane, a county court docket clerk stated on his Internet web page. The trial was initially anticipated to final till the tip of the week, with a half-day adjournment scheduled for Friday.
It is Hurricane Ian heading for Florida after arriving in Cuba on Tuesday morning. The Nationwide Hurricane Heart expects the storm to make landfall in Florida Wednesday evening.
“Even when the courthouse is open (Friday), the consensus is that the physician’s testimony ought to finish on Monday,” Decide Elizabeth Scherer stated after conferring with state prosecutors and protection attorneys.
The jurors heard forensic psychologist dr. Charles Scott, who testified in regards to the data he reviewed, in addition to the time he spent with Cruz. Scott was one in every of 5 witnesses referred to as by the prosecution Tuesday, together with officers from the Broward County Sheriff’s Workplace who helped examine the case.
Cruz pleaded responsible in October 17 counts of homicide and 17 counts of tried homicide within the 2018 Valentine’s Day taking pictures at Marjory Stoneman Douglas Excessive Faculty.
The trial is within the sentencing section, the place jurors can be tasked with deciding whether or not Cruz will obtain the demise penalty or life in jail with out the potential for parole. Jurors have to be unanimous in deciding the demise penalty, based on Florida legislation.
After Cruz’s protection abruptly stopped his case earlier this month, the case resumed Tuesday in Fort Lauderdale, with state prosecutors starting their case.
Throughout his testimony, Scott stated that Cruz “meets the factors for a analysis referred to as delinquent persona dysfunction.”
Scott testified that the opposite two diagnostic conclusions he reached have been borderline persona dysfunction and malingering, both gross exaggeration or “simply fully making up signs for secondary acquire.”
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