The defense attorney for Nikolas Cruz, who shot 17 people dead at Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school in Parkland, Florida in 2018, told a jury Monday that as the child of an alcoholic birth mother his brain was "broken" and urged them not to sentence him to death, AFP reported.
Cruz, 23, pleaded guilty in October to 17 counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of 14 students and three staff members at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. He is contesting only his sentence. The jury is currently deciding only whether he should be executed or receive life in prison.
Melisa McNeill, a public defender representing Cruz in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, told jurors on Monday that he was born to a "homeless, mentally ill" mother who was an addict who used alcohol and drugs during her pregnancy.
"Because Nikolas was bombarded by all of those things, he was poisoned in the womb. Because of that, his brain was irretrievably broken, through no fault of his own," she said, according to the AFP report.
She said that throughout much of his life his developmental and behavioral problems were not addressed.
McNeill said the circumstances of his birth and upbringing should mitigate the punishment, and that life in prison was more appropriate than execution.
"Nikolas Cruz's decision to take an Uber to Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School and kill as many people as he could possibly kill is not where Nikolas Cruz's story starts," she stated.
McNeill said Cruz was born with fetal alcohol stress disorder and assessed at three with antisocial personality disorder.
His birth mother gave him up in a brokered private adoption, she said -- but his adoptive mother also became an alcoholic, and he grew up in a broken home.
The FBI admitted after the shooting it had received a tip that Cruz had a "desire to kill" and access to guns and could be plotting an attack, but agents failed to investigate.
A person who was close to Cruz had called the FBI's tip line before the attack and provided information about Cruz's weapons and his erratic behavior.
The FBI acknowledged that the tip should have been shared with the FBI's Miami office and investigated, but it was not.