The brain tests of the school shooter will be the subject of a judicial hearing

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — A mental health expert on the defense in the criminal trial of Florida school shooter Nikolas Cruz can pinpoint when he realized the serial killer of 23 years old still has “irrational thoughts”: the two were talking about trivial things. when Cruz began to outline plans for an eventual life outside of prison.

Wesley Center, a Texas counselor, said that happened last year at the Broward County jail when he placed probes on Cruz’s scalp to scan and map his brain. In hearings this week, the defense will try to convince Circuit Judge Elizabeth Scherer that Center and other experts should be allowed to testify in Cruz’s ongoing trial about what their evidence showed, something the prosecution wants to bar.

“He had some sort of epiphany while he was in (jail) that would turn his thoughts to being able to help people,” transcripts show, Center told prosecutors during a pretrial interview earlier this year. “The purpose of his life was to help others.”

Cruz, of course, will never be free. Since his arrest about an hour after he murdered 14 students and three staff members at Parkland’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on February 14, 2018, there has never been any question that his remaining years would be behind bars, sentenced to death or life in prison without parole. Surveillance video shows him knocking down her victims with an AR-15-style semi-automatic rifle and eventually confessed plead guilty in October.

Prosecutors argued in favor of the deaths before the jury of seven men, five women and 10 alternates over three weeks, dropping their case on August 4 after the panel. toured the classroom building still bloodstained and punctured by bullets where the massacre occurred.

the jurors also saw graphic surveillance videos; he saw gruesome crime scene and autopsy photos; He received emotional testimony of teachers and students who witnessed the deaths of others; and i listened tearful and angry parents, spouses, and other family members about the victims and how the death of your loved one shocked their lives. They saw video of the ex-student of Stoneman Douglas quietly asking for an icee minutes after the shooting and, nine months later, attacking a prison guard.

Soon, it will be Cruz’s attorneys who will argue why he should be pardoned, hoping to convince at least one juror that mitigating factors outweigh the prosecution’s aggravating circumstances: A death sentence must be unanimous.

But first, the trial was adjourned last week to accommodate requests from some jurors to discuss personal matters. The jury will also be absent this week as the sides argue before Scherer, who will decide whether the brain scans, exhibits and other evidence the defense wants to present as of Aug. 22 are scientifically valid or garbage, as the prosecution maintains.

The Center’s test and its findings will be subject to contentious debate. Called a “quantitative electroencephalogram” or “qEEG,” its backers say it provides helpful support for diagnoses like fetal alcohol syndrome, which Cruz’s attorneys say created his lifelong mental and emotional problems.

EEGs have been common in medicine for a century, measuring brain waves to help doctors diagnose epilepsy and other brain ailments. But qEEG analysis, which has been around since the 1970s, goes a step further: a patient’s EEG results are compared to a database of brain waves taken from normal or “neurotypical” people. While qEEG findings cannot be used to make a diagnosis, they can support findings based on the patient’s history, examination, behavior and other tests, supporters maintain.

A “qEEG can confirm what you already know, but it cannot create new knowledge,” the Center told prosecutors in its interview.

Dr. Charles Epstein, a neurology professor at Emory University, reviewed the Center’s findings for the prosecution. In a written statement to Scherer, he said EEGs using only external scalp probes like the one Cruz was given are inaccurate, rendering the Center’s qEEG results worthless.

“Garbage in, garbage out,” he wrote.

Florida judges have issued mixed rulings on allowing qEEGs since 2010, when the test helped a Miami-area man escape a death sentence for fatally stabbing his wife and seriously injuring their mentally disabled 11-year-old daughter. . Since then, some judges have allowed him to be admitted, while others have banned them. Scherer, who is overseeing his first death penalty trial, has never had a case where the defense has tried to file a qEEG report.

Even if Scherer bans the test, lead defense attorney Melisa McNeill and her team still have evidence that Cruz’s brain was likely damaged in the womb, including statements from her late biological mother that she abused alcohol and cocaine during the trial. pregnancy.

They also have reports that give circumstantial evidence of his mental illness. Cruz was expelled from preschool for hurting other children. During his years in public school, he spent a lot of time in a center for students with emotional problems. He also received years of mental health treatment.

Then there are the circumstances of your life. Cruz’s adoptive father died in front of him when he was 5 years old; he was bullied by his younger brother and his brother’s friends; he was allegedly sexually abused by a “trusted partner”; he cut himself and mistreated animals; and his adoptive mother died less than four months before the shooting.

His youth will also be an issue: He was 19 when the shooting happened.

Lawyers not involved in the case say that if Scherer wants to avoid having a potential death sentence overturned on appeal, he should give the defense wide latitude in what he presents so jurors can fully assess his life. and your mental health.

“If it’s a tough decision, I think it will go to the defense, and the prosecution will not be happy,” said David S. Weinstein, a Miami criminal defense attorney and former prosecutor.

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