FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Parkland school shooter Nikolas Cruz will go to trial later than planned, but not later than the summer of 2020 if the judge on the case gets her way.

Bending to the pleas of the defense team, Broward Circuit Judge Elizabeth Scherer said her original start date of late January had proved to be impractical, but she warned lawyers not to get complacent in scheduling the trial.

“I don’t want to hear that the parties are busy during the summer months,” she said to prosecutors and defense lawyers. “This case is going to be tried in the summer.”

Scherer did not set a firm start date for jury selection, opting instead for a March 23 calendar call to set new dates.

By then, the defense should learn from the Florida Supreme Court whether Cruz’s jail visitor logs will become a public record. Defense lawyers have held back on allowing mental health experts to visit Cruz in jail out of concern that disclosure would tip prosecutors off to their trial strategy.

Cruz has all but conceded guilt in the case — on Feb. 14, 2018, he walked into the freshman building of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, pulled out an AR-15 style rifle and opened fire, killing 17 students and faculty, injuring 17 more, and traumatizing the community.

Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty, and capital cases in Broward County have tended to take three years or more to go to trial. Until Thursday, Scherer had expressed her intent to start jury selection in January, less than two years after the Parkland high school massacre.

The key issue in the Cruz trial appears to be defense efforts to get a jury to spare his life. While some of his history of mental health issues emerged after the mass shooting, he has yet to be interviewed by psychologists for the prosecution or the defense.

As recently as 10 days ago, defense lawyers were openly critical of Scherer’s insistence on starting the trial in late January. In court, their oral arguments were more muted as they relied on their written motions and asserted that the proposed schedule was not practical given the number of witnesses and legal issues that have yet to be resolved.

Scherer ultimately agreed but made it clear that delays would not be endless. “We need a date to work toward,” she said.

Lead defense attorney Melisa McNeill did not commit to the summertime start date that Scherer suggested, but she appeared to agree that the trial will get underway before next year has passed.

“We are doing everything in our power to achieve a late 2020 court date,” she said.

©2019 Sun Sentinel (Fort Lauderdale, Fla.)

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