What is the price (for victims and taxpayers) of a four-month(!) capital trial for Parkland mass murderer Nikolas Cruz?

The question in the title of this post is my (crass?) reaction to the news that the penalty-only capital trial of Nikolas Cruz is scheduled to formally get started this week.  This AP piece, headlined "Life or death for Parkland shooter?  Trial will take months," provides lots of background.  Here are some excerpts:

Four years, five months and four days after Nikolas Cruz murdered 17 at Parkland’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, his trial for the deadliest U.S. mass shooting to reach a jury begins Monday with opening statements.  Delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic and legal wrangling, the penalty-only trial is expected to last four months with the seven-man, five-woman jury being exposed to horrific evidence throughout.  The jurors will then decide whether Cruz, 23, is sentenced to death or life without the possibility of parole.

“Finally,” said Lori Alhadeff, who wants Cruz executed for murdering her 14-year-old daughter Alyssa. “I hope for swift action to hold him responsible.”  All victim parents and family members who have spoken publicly have said directly or indirectly they want Cruz sentenced to death.

The former Stoneman Douglas student pleaded guilty in October to the Feb. 14, 2018, massacre and is only challenging his sentence. Nine other U.S. gunmen who fatally shot at least 17 people died during or immediately after their attacks by suicide or police gunfire.  Cruz was captured after he fled the school.  The suspect in the 2019 killing of 23 at an El Paso, Texas, Walmart is awaiting trial.

Lead prosecutor Mike Satz will give his side’s presentation.... Craig Trocino, a University of Miami law professor, said Satz will likely emphasize the shooting’s brutality and the story of each victim lost. The prosecution’s theme throughout the trial will be, “If any case deserves a death sentence, this is it,” he said....

Trocino said ... Cruz’s attorneys will likely want to plant the seed in jurors’ minds that he is a young adult with lifelong emotional and psychological problems. The goal would be to temper the jurors’ emotions as the prosecution presents grisly videos and photos of the shootings and their aftermath, the painful testimony of the surviving wounded and tearful statements from victims’ family members....

Satz’s team will be required to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Cruz committed at least one aggravating circumstance specified under Florida law, but that should not be an issue.  Those include murders that were especially heinous or cruel; committed in a cold, calculated and premeditated manner; or committed during an act that created a great risk of death to many persons. Cruz’s team can raise several mitigating factors that are also in the law.  Before the shooting, Cruz had no criminal history.  The attorneys can argue he was under extreme mental or emotional disturbance, and his capacity to appreciate his conduct’s criminality or conform it to the law was substantially impaired....

For each death sentence, the jury must be unanimous or the sentence for that victim is life.  The jurors are told that to vote for death, the prosecution’s aggravating circumstances for that victim must, in their judgement, “outweigh” the defense’s mitigators.  A juror can also vote for life out of mercy for Cruz.  During jury selection, the panelists said under oath that they are capable of voting for either sentence.

It is possible Cruz could get death for some victims and life for others, particularly since he walked back to some wounded victims and killed them with a second volley. That might swing any hesitant jurors on those counts. “The prosecution only needs for the jury to come back (for death) on one,” Trocino said.

There is always much to say about the unique dynamics of capital trials, but I must flag here the remarkable contrast between capital and non-capital sentencing procedures.  Though guilt is not disputed in any way with respect to Nikolas Cruz's 17 murders, he can receive a death sentence only if all 12 jurors unanimously decide he should be executed for his crimes.  Contrast that jury-centric process to the non-capital case flagged in this recent post involving a federal defendant who was acquitted of a murder by 12 jurors and yet still had a lone judge sentence him based on the judge's view that he did the killing.  Cruz's case is but one of many examples of the very worst of murderers getting the very best legal protections because we require "super due process" for the imposition of the death penalty even when there is no shred of doubt about guilt.

Notably, in this post 3.5 years ago on the one-year anniversary of the Parkland shooting, I expressed my hope that "someone is keeping track of what this prosecution is costing the taxpayers of the state of Florida."   As I sometimes mention in this space, I view the extraordinary expense of many capital cases (with their super due process) to be a notable argument against the death penalty since it rarely seems the penalty's (debatable) benefits measure up to its (considerable) economic costs.  I can only imagine the taxpayer resources involved in a trial for which jury selection took three months and which is already forecast to last nearly the rest of this year.  Parkland victims are sure also to pay an emotional price as they endure an agonizing trial experience sure to be heavily covered by local and national media.

That said, the AP article asserts that all "victim parents and family members who have spoken publicly have said directly or indirectly they want Cruz sentenced to death."  I sincerely hope all these victims get some measure of satisfaction or catharsis from this particular capital trial.  Sadly, it seems awfully unlikely that this trial will lead to, in the words of one victim, "swift action to hold him responsible."  With nearly 5 years needed to even get to a trial verdict, there are surely years (if not decades) of appeals to follow if Cruz is sentenced to death.  

Some prior related posts:

• Contemplating the capital prosecution of Parkland school shooter Nikolas Cruz
• In shadow of Parkland, a notable discussion with victim families about capital prosecutions in Florida
• "Nikolas Cruz’s birth mom had a violent, criminal past. Could it help keep him off Death Row?" 
• A year after tragedy, taking stock of the agony (and wondering about the costs) already surrounding the capital prosecution of Parkland shooter Nikolas Cruz
• Father of Parkland school shooting victim urges state prosecutors to abandon capital prosecution of shooter
• Will guilty pleas and apology reduce odds that Nikolas Cruz is sentenced to death for Parkland school mass murder?