I hope your ever breathing moment here on earth is miserable and you repent for
your sins. Nicholas and burning Hell. We break down some of the most
powerful and dramatic moments in the sentencing hearing for the confessed Parkland school shooter.
Welcome to sidebar, presented by Long Crime. I'm Jesse Webber. This' Parkland
murderer is going to come a day. It could be a week from now,
it could be a month from now, it could be forty years from
now. You're gonna die. When you die, it is my fondest hope
that they take you and put and burn you, and take your ashes and
thrown in the garbage dump. I hope you're maker send you directly to Hell
to burn for the rest of your eternity. The sentencing for the confessed to
Parkland school shooter is over. Judge Elizabeth Sure officially sentenced Nicholas Crews to life
in prison without the possibility of parole. This came, of course, after
a jury recommended that the killer be sentenced to life in prison as opposed to
the death penalty. As you know, the shooter had pled guilty to seventeen
counts of murder and seventeen counts of attempted murder for opening fire at Marjorie Stoneman
Douglas High School back in twenty eighteen, and the jury's decision of life over
death hit the victims and the victim's family members particularly hard because this is not
what they wanted, and they made that very clear directly after this verdict in
a post verdict press conference. But we had absolutely no idea what we would
end up seeing in this sentencing hearing, because you see, under the law,
victims and victims' family members can provide impact statements to the court in anticipation
of the official sentencing by a judge, and sometimes these statements can really play
a more practical role. They can actually have an important effect on the judge.
A judge who had as discretion handing down a sentence, maybe judge would
hear some of these statements and recommend five years in prison as opposed to one
year in prison. But here that wasn't the case for Judge Elizabeth Sure.
There really wasn't anything she could do. The jury recommended life in prison,
so that's the sentence she had by law she has to hand down. But
that didn't stop any of these individuals from providing incredibly powerful and arguably controversial statements
in court. And to give you a sense of that, I want to
start with a statement from Linda Beegel Shulman. She is the mother of victim
Scott Beagele, the thirty five year old geography teacher who actually helped save the
lives of several of his students. On that day, I learned that here
in Florida, the average death penalty case takes eighteen years from sentencing to execution.
That means that I would probably be dead before you are executed. I
will go forward knowing that you are going to a maximum security prison with other
murderers much tougher than you are. A prison where you will spend the rest
of your miserable life having to look over your shoulder, worried about every single
minute of your day of your life, and scared out of your mind,
fearful for someone to take you out. A prison where you will be other
inmates, boy toy, A prison where your fellow prison inmates are just waiting
to tear you apart. Because from what I hear, child killers are highly
frowned upon and hated in prison. You will look back at the time that
you spent in the Broward County jail and see it as it was a hotel
compared to the prison where you are headed. As far as I'm concerned,
real justice would be done if every family here were given a bullet and your
AR fifteen, and we got to pick straws, and each one of us
got to shoot one at a time at you, making sure that you've felt
every bit of it, and your fear continued to mount until the last family
member who pulled that last straw had the privilege of making sure that they killed
you. That's real justice for you. And this is pretty consistent with what
we've heard the parents hoping and praying that crews be killed in prison, a
form of street justice, clearly expressing their pain and heartbreak, but also their
frustration at the legal system, their frustration at the jury for not voting in
favor of death. And we heard this theme not only that the jury got
it wrong, but perhaps that the law needs to be over because in Florida,
the all law actually changed before twenty sixteen. All you needed was a
majority vote of a jury to recommend the death penalty, but then it changed
to become a unanimous jury vote, and at least one parent expressed that that's
not fair, that how can a minority vote rule? After all, if
one juror votes in favor of life in prison, the sentence is life in
prison. Now that's a whole different conversation for another day. But I want
to go back to the statements, and I should tell you that these parents
and the family members didn't only direct their anger towards Nicholas Cruz. The controversy
that I mentioned before is when they directed their comments to the defense team who
advocated that the death penalty wasn't warranted and highlighted for the jury the defendant's mental
health troubles is problematic early life. And remember, in a way they won,
right, they got life in prison, so the defense won here,
Well, here is Max Shackter, the father of fourteen year old Alex Shachter
who was killed at Parkland. You're making the mental health crisis in America worse
by misrepresenting what actually happened to the Parkland murderer. Just say you can receive
fame and notoriety and go on a book tour. There are so many people
that really need mental health services and did not get them. But that's not
the case with the Parkland murderer. His psychiatrists, his psychologists, counselors,
ese teachers all testify to that effect. He was on medication for most of
his life. The problem was that he didn't receive not that they didn't receive
services or medication. The problem was that none of it worked. You obviously
have a very high tolerance for murder. God knows what you're showing your kids
on television. You obviously have no conscience if you don't think that this is
the worst of the worst. How could you sit there listening to what he
did and say this is not the worst of the worst. He hunted down
innocent children and staff terrified, then tortured them, blew their heads apart like
a water balloon, and enjoyed it. That doesn't make it on your worst
of the worst murderers list. You make me sick. And it didn't end
there. You see. At one point, Manuel Oliver made a victim impact
statement. This is the father of seventeen year old victim Joaquin Oliver, and
he decided to address something that the defense had allegedly done because the week before
the trial began, there was a hearing that was going to be held,
and before the hearing even started up, the video camera in court actually caught
the defense seemingly discussing whether they should throw the middle finger up to the camera,
while mister Oliver decided to display that very same gesture directly towards the defense
team, hiding your actions. The middle finger apologize and you need to learn
how to do a middle finger, so you don't need to apologize, took
anyone. These kinds of comments are what caused defense counsel Melissa McNeil to ask
Judge Elizabeth Shure to step in and stop the parents from making these comments towards
them, but the judge ended up dismissing her. Our system of justice is
designed the way that it was administered in this court room. If he would
have gotten debt, we would not have said one single word about that,
and we would respect to the jury's words. This is our system of government,
Judge, and your honors should be maintained. The deformed supportland to prevent
these families from attacking our children and from attacking us personally. When all we
were appointed on this. Okay, your your objection is voted, and the
judge, oh boy, she got into a heated exchange with one of the
defense lawyers. So I have no problem because I have a big skin.
But once you bring in my children, I think that's highly improper. I
even though you have children, I don't know what you're talking about your children,
what about your children? But them's a comment on my children is highly
improper. You put the sports foot lab like kind of testy. Okay,
Also, there was I don't remember any comments about any children, and if
there was, it obviously didn't. It came and went without me noticing it.
So I can assure that if they were talking about your children, you
would definitely notice it. You need to sit down right now. You're out
of line. In fact, you're excused. You need to go sit in
the back with your with your chief public defender, mister Weeks, please ask
the lawyer from your office to go sit down and not say anything else.
To try to threaten my children and bring up my children is inappropriate. Go
to the back of the room. Now. That just violated about every rule
of professional responsibility that I have ever. I have never if you're going to
get up here and you're going to should I ask you to go sidebar on
this matter. You sidebar or not. You don't have one of your assistant
public defenders say something about my children. Judge. That same venom that the
court is expressing is the same venom that defence counsel had to sit through this
entire morning when there put up her children multiple times during the trial. Nobody
knows if I'm barn or not. They don't know about my children. Sit
down, Sit down, Judge, sit down. Mister Weeks, please do
not summarily simari no sit down. I'm asking the court. I asked the
court to go side book, go sit down. You don't threaten children courtroom,
Go sit down. No one in this courtroom had to endure what we
sit down. Miss McNeil has made her children a spectacle more than once during
this trial. That was her choice. You have absolutely no right to have
one of your assistants come up here and suggest something about my children. Now,
please go sit down. Judge. You're inappropriate and out of line.
Clearly emotions were running high in that courtroom, and of course there's the question
of whether or not the judge should have acted the way that she did.
Was that judicial temperament. Should she have allowed victim impact statements to address the
defense, lawyers and the jury. Typically we don't see that, right,
We don't usually see that. We see the statements directed towards the defendant.
But then again, maybe the victims, maybe they should the victims family members,
Maybe they should have had a chance to say whatever they want to say.
Maybe they should have an open forum. The law does give a lot
of leeway for them to say what they want to say. So should the
judge have blown up at the defense in order them to the back of the
courtroom. These are all outstanding questions at the moment, and again, we
could focus on that at a later time, and we could also do a
probably a full two hour show on all of these really powerful and poignant statements
that were delivered by each person in that courtroom. But I thought I would
end with this the statement of Anne Ramsey, the mother of seventeen year old
victim Helena Ramsey, And as you'll hear, she recounts and kind of trans
transports us back to the horror of that day, but she also explains how
her family's situation and experience was very different. I lost Helena, my daughter
on my birthday, and we should have been out celebrated and laughing and joined
dinner, just doing the usual birthday celebrations spent. Instead, we spent hours
fruitlessly searching nearby hospitals for Helena because we were told that she was injured.
Someone had mistaken her for Samantha Grady, which was often the case, so
we thought she was injured, so we braced ourself ourselves for the worst,
and then we went to the Theward North Broward General Hospital, the main hospital,
and we asked for our daughter. I mean, the whole family was
searching for our daughter. And when we were at the hospital, just by
looking at the response, we knew they knew our daughter had died. But
they sent us to the Marriot. They sent us to the Marriot Center,
and we feel that they should have told us at the hospital because the hospital
is equipped with conference rooms, chapels, equipped to tell people the passing off
their loved ones. Instead, we were sent to a marrier And let me
tell you, we were waiting there for hours and hours and hours, listening
to the screams and the howling of all the other families. All of my
family was there that night. You were in the hospital, you were being
taken care of, while our loved ones lay dead. I was asked by
a reporter would the shoot have been killed if he was black? And I
had to stand there and think about that. I had to think about that
because it's not that simple. The shooter, if he was black, would
not have made it past the gate, because that's the response. It's an
aggressive response. He would have been stopped before he entered the gate. So
I couldn't have said he would have been shot. No, I can say
the response would have been different, And this is how we are treated.
Same with the Broward schools. My daughter didn't get her acknowledgment. The same
with the browd Sheriff's office, my family, all of my family were there
until three am while you were in the hospital. And after all of these
statements, the judge imposed the sense. But before she did, she did
have some parting words for everyone. And I can't help but think of how
I would behave or respond if I were in your shoes. And the way
that you have grieved so gracefully and have shown extraordinary restraint throughout this process is
something that I've never seen. And as a group of people, you are
so strong and so united that if anything good came out of this event.
I feel seeing you, I can know that you are all going to be
okay because you have each other. And after the judge imposed the sentence,
cruise was taken away, his defense attorneys left the courtroom, and the victims
actually waited in line in the courtroom to give the judge a hug. What
an ending to an absolutely incredibly sad and devastating case. And thanks so much
everybody for joining us here on Sidebar. Please subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify,
YouTube, wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Jesse Weber. Speak to
you next time.