Nikolas Cruz

Florida juries can now send someone to death row with an 8-4 vote.

Legislators approved a bill that will allow death penalty sentences with the recommendation of at least eight jurors in favor. It now heads to Gov. Ron DeSantis' desk.

Judges would still have discretion to sentence defendants to life in prison after receiving jury recommendations of death sentences.

Parents of the victims, and those who were most closely impacted by the shooting, offer their reflections as the fifth anniversary approaches.

After a jury recommended the sentence, the judge could not change it. But she did allow victims and families to speak directly to Nikolas Cruz for the first time to express their anger and grief.

During a hearing at the Broward County Courthouse on Tuesday, victims of the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School poured out their grief and anger — at the confessed gunman and the judicial system.

A two-day hearing is scheduled to begin Tuesday that will conclude with Circuit Judge Elizabeth Scherer formally sentencing Nikolas Cruz.

After the jury recommended a life sentence, there was a notion that the verdict will set a precedent of leniency that could help motivate future mass killers. An expert breaks down that claim.

Until 2016, Florida law allowed trial judges to impose a death sentence if a majority of the jurors agreed. But now, anything less than 12-0 means an automatic sentence of life without parole.

Prosecutors in the case of Florida school shooter Nikolas Cruz are calling for an investigation after a juror said she felt threatened by another member of the jury during deliberations.

Minutes after Nikolas Cruz was spared the death penalty, family members whose loved ones were violently taken from them at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School said the justice system had failed them. Local and state officials also expressed their disappointment.

Fourteen students and three staff members were killed in the rampage at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on Valentine's Day in 2018. Cruz, 24, pleaded guilty last year to first-degree murder.