On Monday, the Florida Supreme Court issued a public reprimand against the judge presiding over the penalty trial of Parkland school shooter Nikolas Cruz, citing her bias towards prosecutors.
The unanimous decision came after the Judicial Qualifications Commission’s June recommendation, which found that Circuit Judge Elizabeth Scherer had violated several rules governing judicial conduct during last year’s trial, particularly in her interactions with Cruz’s public defenders. The six-month trial culminated in Cruz receiving a life sentence for the 2018 murder of 14 students and three staff members at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, as the jury could not reach a unanimous decision on a death sentence.
The 15-member commission determined that Judge Scherer had “unduly chastised” the lead public defender and engaged in improper gestures of support towards the prosecution in the courtroom after the trial’s conclusion.
Having retired from the bench at the end of last month, Judge Elizabeth Scherer, a former prosecutor, was appointed to the bench in 2012, and the Cruz case marked her first capital murder trial.
