Confessed Parkland shooter will retain tax-funded legal defense, judge rules

The confessed Parkland shooter won’t lose his tax-funded attorneys anytime soon, a Broward County judge has ruled.

Circuit Judge Elizabeth Scherer denied a motion from the Broward Public Defender’s Office to withdraw from its defense of Nikolas Cruz, the 20-year-old who has been indicted on 17 counts of first-degree murder and 17 counts of attempted murder, after his attorneys contended he would no longer be eligible for public defenders after receiving a cut of his late mother’s $864,929 MetLife life insurance policy.

The Public Defender’s Office, which can only defend indigent defendants, has represented Cruz since the Feb. 14 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, which resulted in the deaths of 17 students and faculty. The shootings also injured 17 people.

Public Defender Howard Finkelstein had offered to allow Cruz to plead guilty in exchange for an agreement from prosecutors to forgo the pursuit of the death penalty. Broward State Attorney Michael Satz rejected the offer. A not-guilty plea was entered on Cruz’s behalf.

In her ruling, issued Wednesday, Judge Scherer noted that Cruz had not yet sought to obtain his cut of the annuity, which he would share with his brother, according to NBC 6. He is facing civil lawsuits from some of the families of victims of the shooting.

“Pending the court’s ruling on the Office of Public Defender’s motion to withdraw, the parties shall continue to engage in discovery, and shall continue with scheduled depositions, maintaining the status quo, as the public defender, attorney for the defendant,” Scherer wrote in her order, according to court records.

Scherer is aiming for a 2020 trial date.

This story was originally published May 3, 2019 at 1:58 PM.