School shooter’s jury selection enters final stretch

Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooter Nikolas Cruz stands as prospective jurors enter the courtroom for jury selection in the penalty phase of Cruz's trial at the Broward County Courthouse in Fort Lauderdale on Wednesday, June 22, 2022. Cruz previously plead guilty to all 17 counts of premeditated murder and 17 counts of attempted murder in the 2018 shootings.

The final 83 candidates remaining from about 1,800 who began the three-step process back on April 4 are being brought back to Circuit Judge Elizabeth Scherer's courtroom in four groups over two days, the first two undergoing questioning Wednesday. The 23 men and 15 women in the groups come from diverse backgrounds. An airline pilot. Bankers. A circus fire eater and stilt walker. A city councilwoman. Grocery store and Walmart workers. A loading dock supervisor, a human resources manager, a special education teacher, a new self-help author, a librarian, computer techs, a longshoreman and retirees. They appeared to range from their 20s through their 60s and at least 17 appeared to be racial minorities. Two volunteered they are gay.

While lead prosecutor Mike Satz mostly asked straight-forward questions Wednesday about the panelists' backgrounds, assistant public defenders Nawal Bashimam and Tamara Curtis followed with more wide-ranging and open questions, their motivation not always obvious.

where the massacre occurred. A retired U.S. Customs agent said he did recovery work at the World Trade Center in 2001 after the 9-11 terrorist attack, so he's already experienced something similarly horrific. A firefighter and nurse agreed when asked if some people aren't cut out to see such photos.

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