Parkland school shooter pleaded guilty to 17 counts of murder and 17 counts of attempted murder on Wednesday for the 2018 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.

Nikolas Cruz, 23, and his attorneys now face a battle in the penalty trial that is set to start in January and will determine whether Cruz will received life in prison or the death penalty. Circuit Judge Elizabeth Scherer noted that Cruz’s mandatory minimum sentence is life in prison with no parole.

At the hearing, Scherer asked a lengthy list of questions to ensure the gunman understood the court proceedings. After understanding all the questions, Cruz proceeded to plead “guilty” 34 times as Scherer read each charge, which included each victim’s name. Fourteen students and three school staff members were killed in the shooting on Feb. 14, 2018, in the Miami suburb of Parkland.

"I am very sorry for what I did and have to live with it every day. If I were to get a second chance, I would do everything in my power to try to help others," Cruz said in a statement to the court.

Cruz then turned to the victims’ families present in the trial and said, “I love you, and I know you don't believe me. But I have to live with this every day, and it brings me nightmares and I can't live with myself sometimes. But I try to push through because I know that's what you guys would want me to do.”

His remark followed prosecutors' recount of the 2018 mass school shooting that detailed the gunman's walk into the school hallways with a purchased semiautomatic rifle to the killing of the 14 students and three faculty members and the injuring of 17 more people in one of the deadliest school shooting in American history, the New York Times noted.

This is Cruz's second guilty plea this month. He pleaded guilty to four charges in an attack against a Broward County Jail guard nine months after the shooting

RELATED STORIES