Judge in the Parkland school shooter case has refused to resign

• Lawyers for Florida school shooter Nikolas Cruz asked judge to step down.
• They accused her of being biased against their client and prejudicing the jurors.
• Judge Elizabeth Scherer denied the motion, saying only it was legally insufficient.

The judge presiding over the death penalty trial of Florida school shooter Nikolas Cruz refused to resign on Monday, rejecting a motion by his attorneys accusing her of bias against their client and prejudicing the jurors who will decide whether he should die for murdering 17 people four years ago.

Circuit Judge Elizabeth Scherer denied the motion on the grounds that it was only legally insufficient. Outside the presence of the jury, Scherer chastised lead defence attorney Melisa McNeill and her team, accusing them of being “unprofessional” when they unexpectedly rested their case after only about 25 of the 80 witnesses they had told her and prosecutors they intended to call had been called.

In court documents filed last week, the defence claimed that those comments, as well as those made by the judge later to the jury, were “the zenith of the cumulative disdain” shown by Scherer toward Cruz and themselves throughout the case. According to legal observers, the defence was under no obligation to call all of its proposed witnesses or notify the judge or prosecution when they intended to rest.

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Prosecutors argued in court documents that Scherer’s comments did not amount to bias against Cruz. They cited a 1994 U.S. Supreme Court decision that says a judge’s “expressions of impatience, dissatisfaction, annoyance, and even anger” toward the defence are not grounds for resigning.

A mistrial would have been declared if Scherer had stepped down. Before a new trial could be held, the new judge would have required months of preparation.

Cruz, 23, pleaded guilty in October to the murders of 14 students and three faculty members at Parkland’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on February 14, 2018. His trial, which began with jury selection in April and will conclude in July, will only determine whether he is sentenced to death or life in prison without the possibility of parole. The jury must be unanimous in order for him to be sentenced to death.

Two attorneys who have followed the trial said the defence team had no expectation that Scherer would resign; they simply want her performance to be considered in their appeal if Cruz is sentenced to death. They had to object now in order to do so.

According to Bob Jarvis, a law professor at Nova Southeastern University, there was “absolutely no chance” Scherer would drop the case.

“If she did, she’d be admitting she’d done a terrible job,” Jarvis explained. Before taking on the Cruz case, Scherer, a former prosecutor, had never presided over a first-degree murder trial.

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