Parkland school shooting judge booted from death penalty case

The judge who oversaw the Parkland mass shooting case has been removed from another death penalty proceeding for being too friendly with prosecutors during Nikolas Cruz’s sentencing trial last year.

Elizabeth Scherer, who had several bitter exchanges with the school killer’s defense team, will no longer handle any post-conviction matters for Randy Tundidor, who was sentenced to death in 2014 for stabbing his landlord to death.

The Florida Supreme Court argued that Scherer displayed inappropriate sympathy for prosecutors, who argued that Cruz deserved execution for one of the worst mass slaughters in the nation’s history.

“Immediately after sentencing Cruz, Judge Scherer left the bench and, while still in her judicial robe, exchanged hugs with the victims’ families and members of the prosecution team,” the panel noted in their decision.

One of the prosecutors she embraced, Assistant State Attorney Steven Klinger, is currently assigned to Tundidor’s case, which he is appealing.

The panel argued that Tunidor has grounds for a “reasonable fear” that Scherer would not give him an impartial hearing given her past actions.

Jurors had the choice of sentencing Cruz to life in prison or death — and his life was eventually spared after they could not reach a legally-required unanimous decision.

Cruz’s defense attorneys argued that his mental deficits and troubled upbringing merited the lesser punishment. His rampage at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School claimed 17 lives.

Scherer frequently sparred with his attorneys during his emotional sentencing trial last year.

During one exchange, the judge ripped Cruz’s team after it abruptly rested its case without giving the court advance warning.

“You’ve been insulting me this entire trial,” she said at the time. “Blatantly. Taking your headphones off, Arguing with me. Storming out. Coming in late intentionally when you don’t like my rulings.”

In severing Scherer from the Tundidor case, the panel argued that her past behaviors “would create in a reasonably prudent person a well-founded fear of not receiving a fair and impartial proceeding.”

Accompanied by his son, Tundidor went to his landlord’s home in Plantation, Florida in 2010 after receiving a demand for overdue rent. He eventually stabbed Joseph Morrissey, 46, to death while his tied-up wife and 5-year-old son were in another room.

Tundidor then set the home on fire with the intent to kill off Morrissey’s family, but they managed to escape.

A Broward County jury sentenced him to death in 2014.