The Forensic Case

Few crimes in the United States have garnered more attention than the 2018 mass school shooting in Parkland, Florida, where Nikolas Cruz shot and killed 17 people, mostly students, and injured 17 more. As his trial in 2021 unfolded, it became apparent he had fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD) stemming from his birth mother’s alcohol abuse during pregnancy. Like his offense, his sentence of life in prison without parole rather than the death penalty also stunned the country. Using the Cruz case as an exemplar, this chapter explores how the Cruz defense team effectively used a chronological narrative to provide jurors with a wholistic understanding of the defendant, not as the object of revulsion presented by prosecutors but rather as a disabled youth whose biologically-based impairments had affected every aspect of his functioning throughout life through no fault of his own. The chapter concludes with the authors’ thoughts on the factors that most contributed to the surprising sentence Cruz received.