The Oxford High School shooter’s families received a 10- to 15-year jail sentence, bringing to a nearby traditional criminal trial the first time a father and mother of a large school shooter had been charged and found guilty of manslaughter in connection with their child’s violence.
For total neglect in their son’s 2021 firing at Oxford High School, James and Jennifer Crumbley were sentenced to a maximum of 15 years in prison. The prosecution had requested that the word be given.
” Opportunity knocked over and over again and was ignored”, said Matthews.
The Crumbleys failed as families, ignoring their brother’s deteriorating mental condition and continuing to buy him a firearm, according to the parents of the four victims killed in the 2021 shooting, demanding the highest sentence. Many refuted Jennifer’s claim that she would n’t have changed anything before the shooting in a statement she made during her trial.
” You have failed your child and failed us all”, said Jill Soave, the family of Justin Shilling, one of four kids fatally shot.
Before Matthews handed down her statement, some family members called out the Crumbleys for their choice- making, saying they’re living a nightmare. Jennifer observed as some community members explained how their life had been destroyed.
” Hana, Tate, Madisyn and Justin are the ones who have lost everything”, said Steve St. Juliana, whose 14- year- older girl Hana, was mortally shot. ” No the defendants”.
Jennifer Crumbley addressed Matthews and the victims, saying she felt “deep sorrow” for the victims ‘ people and everyone who was affected that day. She continued, however, that she and her father did like their child and that anyone who witnessed what happened to them could inherit it.
She declared,” I will spend the rest of my life in my own inner prison.”
James, speaking for the first time during the judicial proceedings, even apologized to the patients, saying he had no idea what his brother was planning.
” I ca n’t express how much I wish that I had known what was going on with him ( the shooter ) or what was going to happen”, he said. ” I positively what have done a lot of things differently”.
Lawyers called for 10 to 15 years in prison, highlighting what they characterized as the child’s lack of remorse. However, James and Jennifer’s prosecutors requested that they be sentenced to occasion served or house arrest. They have been in prison since their imprisonment in December 2021 as they slept in a Detroit arts studio.
Separate juries in Oakland County convicted , Jennifer , and , James — in February and March, both — of four counts of involuntary manslaughter each the deaths of four kids killed by their son in November 2021: Madisyn Baldwin, Hana St. Juliana, Tate Myre and Justin Shilling.
Before reading her statement, Matthews said the views were not about bad parenthood. They confirm the repeated or absent activities the Crumbleys took, which would have caused the hair to grow up on a reasonable child’s neck.
St. Juliana claimed he left almost daily focused on the innocent verdict, but that changed as more details emerged. After attending both tests, that almost always changed. He said his child Reina, Hana’s older sister, is “very far in favor of throwing the book at them”.
” There’s only a complete lack of remorse, of accountability. He blames the prosecutor ( Karen McDonald ) for everything. There’s just no grief whatsoever”, St. Juliana said.
A parole officer with the Michigan Department of Corrections had prepared a pre-sentence analysis report for the Crumbleys for each. The report included details from the state’s sentencing guidelines “grids,” as well as an examination, a written proposal for a statement, comments from the Crumbleys about their crime, and data from the country’s punishment guide.
The sentencing tables provided guidelines for the sentences the Crumbleys could receive. After concluding that mandatory sentencing guidelines in 2015 violated the Sixth Amendment, the Michigan Supreme Court only made them advisory.
A defendant’s prior criminal history and specific issues related to the offense are taken into account in the guidelines.
Grossly negligent
Prosecutors claimed that Jennifer and James acted grossly negligent in the 2021 shooting, disregarding warning signs about their son’s declining mental health, and did not tell school officials the family owned guns when they called meeting with school officials the morning of the shooting to discuss a disturbing drawing the teen had down in class. The drawing included phrases such as “help me”,” the thoughts wo n’t stop” and “blood everywhere”.
Additionally, the Crumbleys are held accountable for the shooting because they did not secure the family’s firearms, according to the prosecution.
Jennifer Crumbley’s attorney sought house arrest for her client, while James Crumbley asked for time served.
But prosecutors had asked for 10- 15 years for each parent. They claimed that James and Jennifer both admitted to showing no lack of regret in sentencing memos. In phone calls from jail, James threatened to call Oakland County Prosecutor Karen McDonald and say he would” f—g take her down” and call her.
They brought up statements Jennifer made in both during a previous jail call in 2022 and during testimony she gave in her own defense, both of which she claimed she would not have changed.  , The jury foreperson for Jennifer’s trial , said in a TV interview after finding her guilty the jurors were influenced by her statement on the stand, which she gave in response to a question by her attorney.
However, Jennifer made an effort to clarify that statement in her investigation report before the sentence, stating that she meant she would not have had to make any other decisions without the benefit of experience.
” With the information I have now, of course my answer would be hugely different. If I could travel back in time, there are so many things I would change.
Her attorney, Shannon Smith, said she could live at Smith’s house if sentenced to house arrest.
James also argued against prosecutors ‘ claims that he is regrettably absent from his pre-sentence investigation by saying he believes he did what any parent would do in his circumstances. He claimed that he regularly spoke with his son, asking him about his studies and how he was doing without the assistance of his only friend, who recently abruptly relocated out of state.
“Ethan was a great kid. He never got in trouble at school, had decent grades, and very rarely got in trouble at home”, James wrote. “Ethan always appeared to be a very stable individual. Never did he tell me anything that bothered him.
His attorney, Mariell Lehman, wrote in her sentencing memorandum that the shooter hid things from the Crumbleys. She claimed that James had expressed regret to the victims of her childbirth and that he would have had other plans if he had known what his son had planned and that he had accessed the gun without his knowledge.
” If they had known,’ ( w ) e could have saved four kids ‘ lives (, )’ and ‘ ( w ) e could have saved everything,'” Lehman said James said on a jail call in September 2022. He repeatedly said that he would have preferred to have known and that he would have proceded differently if he had.
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