Making Peace with the Parkland Punishment

Stoneman Douglas High School, a quiet school in the suburban town of Parkland, Florida, was the site of a horrific mass shooting that occurred on Feb. 14, 2018. The gunman was then 19- year-old former student Nikolas Cruz. He walked into one of the school buildings heavily armed and set off the fire alarm in order to get people to vacate the classrooms. As students started pouring into the hallways, he opened fire, killing 17 people in total. Cruz was caught an hour after the police showed up at the scene and held without bond on 17 accounts of premeditated murder. On the day of his trial, Oct. 13, many expected Cruz to be sentenced to the death penalty. However, the jury decided to give him a life sentence without possibility of parole, which devastated many of the families of the victims, according to Yahoo News. Instead of finding closure, the victims’ families found themselves in the middle of one of society’s most controversial debates. Those advocating for the death penalty are doing so based on evidence that Cruz showed no mercy during the shooting, while those who support the life sentence argue that Cruz should be spared due to his mental illnesses, stemming from his mother’s drug and alcohol abuse during her pregnancy. The jury’s decision was ultimately correct because the death penalty is a punishment that accomplishes nothing substantial and deciding whether someone deserves to die causes more harm than good.

“I would probably lean towards the death penalty [for Cruz]. [Although] the death penalty is not a deterrent, it gives victims the sense of closure that they want,” Advanced Placement European History teacher Donald Frazier said. “However, in most cases, victims should be the ones determining a perpetrator’s outcome because they were the people directly involved, [not the jury].”

The outcome of the Parkland trial left the families of victims and those following the trial divided because some think Cruz wholeheartedly deserved the death penalty, while others believe that Cruz will suffer more if he lives out the rest of his life in prison. According to Fair Punishment, in the state of Florida, there needs to be a unanimous decision from the jury in order to give someone the death penalty. There are other factors that are also taken into consideration: for example, the person must have intentionally created a life-threatening situation for multiple people or they must have already committed a felony. There were 12 jurors present for the trial; nine voted for the death penalty and three voted against it due to evidence of Cruz’s mental illness. No matter what the jury ultimately decided — whether it be the death penalty or the life sentence — there would have been a massive amount of backlash. Currently, the media is heavily criticizing the decisions of the jurors who voted against the death penalty. Cruz’s case is arguably one of those situations where the death penalty is not a harsh enough punishment for his actions. Living out the rest of his life in prison with the guilt of murdering 17 people, on top of the strenuous conditions of prison life, will not be enjoyable. 

Additionally, while for certain crimes the death penalty seems to be the only fitting punishment, there are also cases where an innocent person has been sentenced to death. According to the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI), Walter McMillian, a former dry cleaning store clerk in Monroeville, Alabama, was wrongly accused for the murder of an 18-year-old white woman named Ronda Morrison. McMillian had no prior criminal history and was a self-employed logger who had worked for many of the members of his community. What brought McMillian to attention was that he was having an affair with a married white woman, which at the time was particularly scandalous because he was Black. A public divorce between the woman and her husband brought McMillian into the limelight and in authorities minds, “he went from someone having an interracial affair to someone thought to be capable of murder” (EJI). McMillian was taken into custody and soon after, he was charged with capital murder and spent 15 long months on Alabama’s death row before being sentenced. At his trial, he was wrongly sentenced to death and spent the next six years on death row until Bryan Stevenson, the founder of EJI, proved his innocence. Without the help of Stevenson, McMillian would have been wrongly killed. This demonstrates some of the flaws of the death penalty. Even though the prosecuting team should have provided an argument based on concrete evidence, the people involved with his sentencing were corrupt. They paid off inmates to give false testimonies in exchange for early release, forged evidence and even sent death threats to EJI. The death penalty also disproportionately impacts the Black community due to racial bias, making it a risky punishment as the decision-making process relies too heavily on jurors, and the death penalty can therefore be given to undeserving people.

“In most cases, it is hard to [quantify the value of] a human’s life,” sophomore Helena Groskreutz said. “However, there are exceptions because [some people like] serial killers deserve the death penalty. They are a large threat to society and do not see what is wrong with their actions. They also often do not change their minds.”

The death penalty is the harshest punishment people on trial can receive. Still, even though it can help some victims find the closure they are seeking, it often only causes chaos. Those involved in the decision of sentencing someone to death also have to live with the guilt of being responsible for their end. Even if the person is undeniably guilty, at the end of the day, their execution is happening due to the jury’s verdict. This points out another flaw regarding people deciding whether someone deserves the death penalty or not: the jurors all have their own biases about Cruz’s case, and even though they were supposed to make a decision free of all bias, that was an impossible task. People’s views of the world around them are tinted by their opinions and experiences. On the other hand, a life sentence is a more deserving punishment for Cruz, especially considering factors like his mental health. Although Cruz may not fully understand the extent of his actions now, he has the rest of his life to reflect on them and live with the guilt.

“It is hard to live with the guilt of your actions, especially if you realize [the extent] of them,” senior Elizabeth Maeder said. “Mental health matters a lot when decisions are made in court regarding someone’s future. It does not excuse [Cruz’s] crimes, but it brings up the question of [whether he] understood what he did and what happened as a result.”