The Latest Breaking News from Parkland

Jurors recently handed down their decision in the sentencing trial of Nikolas Cruz, the man who murdered 17 people, mostly children, in the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in 2018 in Parkland, Florida. They opted against the death penalty, choosing instead to give Cruz life in prison without parole.

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.

The crucial question at the Parkland killer’s sentencing trial wasn’t expressed in so many words on the elaborate verdict forms that took more than an hour to read in court Thursday.

The life sentence about to be imposed on Florida school shooter Nikolas Cruz could bring changes to the state's death penalty law

‘A crime may have been committed’ in Parkland trial jury room, prosecutors say

Tensions boiled over in the jury room, according to a new court filing

Anne Ramsay, whose 17-year-old daughter was among victims of killer Nikolas Cruz, does not believe justice was done

MIAMI — A jury’s decision to hand out a life sentence for Parkland mass killer Nikolas Cruz will make it even more difficult to secure death sentences in the future — and could also spur Florida lawmakers to consider changing the state’s capital punishment law, legal experts say.

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — A Broward County jury showed mercy Thursday to a heartless killer who didn’t know the meaning of the word as he stalked the hallways of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School more than four years ago, viciously ending the lives of 17 innocent people.

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — It has been 1,702 days since they last looked into the eyes of their child, their spouse, but the families of 17 students and staff killed at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in 2018 finally got their moment of reckoning.

‘They better tear that building down today,’ former student says