The lawyers that have been assigned to defend suspected mass-killer Nikolas Cruz have reportedly presented him with the possibility of avoiding death by pleading guilty to the 17 counts of premeditated murder that he's been charged with.
According to a document filed with the courts, Cruz, 19, is on record for having already confessed to authorities that he was "the gunman who entered the school campus armed with an AR-15 and began shooting students that he saw on the hallways and on the school grounds.” The alleged admission, coupled with the mountain of material and anecdotal evidence collected from witnesses, is sure to present an uphill battle for Cruz should he choose to fight the charges.
Should Cruz seek to immediately settle in exchange for a sentence that is likely to equate to life in prison without parole, his attorneys believe that he'd also be sparing families of the slain Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting victims the emotional distress that would be dragged out by a trial.
“This is an opportunity to put the criminal case behind and help the victims' families begin to try and pick up pieces of their lives for our community to heal and to figure out how we stop these things from ever happening again,” says Broward County Public Defender Howard Finkelstein, who has told the press that he is adamant Cruz will indeed enter a guilty plea.
