DeSantis Disappointed in Nikolas Cruz Jury Decision, Says Legal System is Not Serving the Interest Of Victims

CAPE CORAL (FLV) – Gov. Ron DeSantis says he is disappointed in the jury’s recommendation to sentence 24-year-old Parkland school shooter Nikolas Cruz to life in prison, who plead guilty to killing 17 people in the 2018 Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting.

“I just don’t think anything else is appropriate except the capital sentence in this case and so I was very disappointed to see that,” said DeSantis.

At the beginning of an unrelated press conference in Cape Coral on Tuesday, DeSantis said the decision stings and is not what they were hoping for.

“I think that if you have a death penalty at all, that that is a case where you’re massacring those students, with premeditation and utter disregard for basic humanity that you deserve the death penalty,” DeSantis said.

The jury deliberated over two days as part of a three-month trial that included graphic videos, photos and testimony from the massacre and its aftermath, according to reports.

“The jurors came back apparently it was 11 to 1 – with 1 holdout – refusing to authorize the ultimate punishment and that means that this killer’s going to end up getting a same sentence of people who’ve committed bad acts – but acts that did not rise to this level,” he said.

In the state of Florida, the death sentence requires a unanimous vote on at least one count. At least one juror reportedly believed “mitigating” factors, like his mental state, outweighed “aggravating” factors, like the cruelty of the shooting.

DeSantis also said he is disappointed in the legal system.

“I am also disappointed that we are four and a half years after these killings and were just now getting this – you know they used to do this – he would have been executed in 6 months. He’s guilty – everybody knew that from the beginning and yet it takes years and years in this legal system that is not serving the interest of victims,” he said.

Democrat gubernatorial candidate Charlie Crist echoed a similar message on Twitter saying, “There are crimes for which the only just penalty is death. The Parkland families and community deserved that degree of justice.”