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Jury Will Consider Death Sentence For Convicted JCC Shooter Next Week

Joe Ledford
/
POOL/Kansas City Star
Frazier Glenn Cross Jr. has appeared in a wheelchair with oxygen tanks throughout the duration of his trial. A pulmonologist testified Friday the 74-year-old will probably only live 5-6 more years.

A Johnson County jury will be back Tuesday to decide if convicted killer Frazier Glenn Cross Jr. will be sentenced to death for shooting three people last year.

Rather than risk having to sequester the jury over the holiday weekend, Judge Thomas Kelly Ryan dismissed them a little before 10 a.m. Friday, telling them to come back fresh next week.

Both prosecutors and Cross, who is representing himself, agreed it would be best to wait to send the case to the jury.

But Cross, who has no more witnesses to call, told the judge he doesn’t feel he’s gotten a fair shake because the prosecution objected to so much of his anti-Semitic rhetoric.

“This is not a public square,” Ryan replied. “It’s a court of law.”

Cross spent three days on the stand after the jury convicted him, saying he regretted that he killed three non-Jews in last year’s shooting spree at the Jewish Community Center and Village Shalom, but he didn’t regret his intentions.

William Corporon, Reat Underwood and Terri LaManno died in the attack.

A pulmonologist who testified Friday estimated the 74-year-old Cross, who has chronic lung disease, would only live another 5-6 years.

If the jury doesn’t sentence him to death, he’ll spend the rest of his life in prison.

Cross asked the jury to spare his life earlier this week, but by Friday, he’d changed his mind.

“After thinking it over, I want to be a martyr,” he told the judge while the jury was out of the courtroom. “I want to maintain my manhood and my honor.”

Cross said prosecutors would be doing him a favor if he could die for the white nationalist movement.

The rest of the day will be spent finalizing jury instructions.

Elle Moxley covered education for KCUR.
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