DETROIT — Three Michigan Court of Appeals judges weighed arguments Tuesday about whether there is sufficient evidence to send the parents of the Oxford High School shooter to trial on involuntary manslaughter charges, raising questions about how foreseeable the shooting was to James and Jennifer Crumbley.
Judges Christopher Murray, Michael Riordan and Christopher Yates focused most of their questions on what the Crumbleys didn't do to prevent their son's mass shooting on Nov. 30, 2021, but defense lawyers countered that the court risked setting a precedent that opened all parents to legal liability for not doing certain things even though they aren't aware of their children's state of mind.
Michigan parents are rarely charged in connection with the crimes committed by their children. The hearing also was unusual because an Oakland County Circuit Court judge had already bound over the Crumbleys for trial, but the Michigan Supreme Court stepped in and delayed the proceeding until the Court of Appeals panel reviewed whether there was probable cause a crime was committed — which legal experts say requires a low level of proof — and should proceed to trial.
The Court of Appeals judges, who will release a ruling at a later unspecified date, will either decide there was not enough evidence to bind over the case and dismiss it, or they will send it back to Oakland County Circuit Court to proceed to trial.
Oakland County Prosecutor Karen McDonald's office argued the Crumbleys were grossly negligent in buying their then-15-year-old son a handgun and ignoring his mental state. Ethan Crumbley brought the gun to school and killed four of his classmates and wounded seven others in November 2021.
James and Jennifer Crumbley's attorneys, Mariell Lehman and Shannon Smith, countered that prosecutors did not meet the probable cause standard required to bind the case over for trial. The Crumbleys had no reason to believe their son posed a threat to himself or others, the defense attorneys said in a Detroit court hearing room, so they were not legally responsible for anything he did.
The judges asked if wasn't reasonable to hold the parents accountable for not seeking mental health care for their then 15-year-old son when he said he was having hallucinations, not taking him home the day of the shooting after a meeting with school officials and not looking to see if he had the gun with him.
"What we're looking at is, what actions or inactions did the two defendants have that led to this shooting?" Murray said when Smith argued the judges were looking at the case through a lens of what should have happened. "We're not second-guessing them. We're just saying, what things did they do or not do that led to these events? Because that's causation."
But holding parents liable for something like failing to open a backpack opens up unlimited liability to every parent across the state, the Crumbleys' defense attorneys said.
Smith argued it "truly wasn't foreseeable that (the shooter) was going to take this gun and shoot people."
Lehman said prosecutors have failed to point to a single case that shows a defendant can be held responsible for the calculated, planned events of another person.
"The prosecution can't point to any other cases in which an individual, not just a parent, but an individual has been charged for the intentional premeditated killings by one person," Lehman said. "It hasn't happened in the past and shouldn’t happen now."
The Crumbleys each face four involuntary manslaughter charges connected to the deaths of Oxford High students Madisyn Baldwin, 17; Tate Myre, 16; Hana St. Juliana, 14; and Justin Shilling, 17. Their son pleaded guilty in October to their deaths and awaits sentencing.
Prosecutor counters
Oakland County Assistant Prosecutor Joseph Shada said charging the parents of a shooter is rare, and it should be. One similar case was charged in Kentucky, but charges were dropped after a change of leadership in the office.
But Shada maintained the Oxford High shooting was foreseeable. The Crumbleys knew of Ethan's hallucinations and knew he asked to go to the doctor, yet did nothing, the assistant prosecutor said. James Crumbley gave the teen some pills and told him to "suck it up," and Jennifer Crumbley laughed at him, Shada said.
"They also knew his best friend had moved away, and he was isolated," Shada said. "Instead of getting him out, they bought him a gun."
It is hard to overcome the school meeting that took place the morning of the shooting, as well as their son asking for help but not receiving it, said Murray, an appointee of former Gov. John Engler.
But Lehman and Smith argued that there were no concerns about Ethan harming anyone else; the concerns were about him harming himself.
"The thing (James and Jennifer Crumbley) did not do is plot and plan these murders and hold a weapon and shoot people in cold blood in a school," Smith said. "Anything else they could have done, like get him into therapy sooner, go through his backpack, look at his cell phone, go through his room, pick apart anything, those are all things that in hindsight, parents always wish they had done when a problem occurs."
Lehman said they dispute the fact that James Crumbley bought his son the gun, despite evidence to the contrary. Shada said a clerk at the Oxford gun store testified about the purchase and he pointed to paperwork, the receipt and messages about the gun being an early Christmas present.
Murray and Riordan both questioned how this precedent of allowing involuntary manslaughter charges might be applied in other cases — for instance, Murray said, if a family of hunters buys their teenager a hunting rifle and the child kills someone. Shada said the law would require the use of ordinary care for the weapon.
“What’s the precedent we’re going to set here?” Riordan said in response to Shada. “There are a lot of families with kids who might not be as stable as the parents would like them to be. What’s going to be the guidepost that we lay out for other cases to follow? Is it, the kid’s bullied at school and comes home complaining about that, lock up all the guns? Is it, the kid seems down, make sure the kid doesn’t go to school? What message are we going to send with this case here?”
The assistant prosecutor responded that the guideposts are “simply the elements of this offense,” namely gross negligence by the parents, who didn't show the use of ordinary care.
Oxford families: 'We want to see accountability'
The hearing drew attention from the families of the Oxford High shooting victims and community members. Oxford parent Andrea Jones said she attended Tuesday’s court hearing so others would understand the trauma of the attack is not over in the Oxford community.
"It's incredibly important for us to come here and make our presence known and we want to see accountability," Jones said.
Elsewhere in Detroit, community members and parents of some of the students killed and wounded in the high school shooting were holding a press conference over civil litigation in the Oxford shooting. But they weighed in on the Crumbleys' hearing.
Jill Soave, Justin Shilling’s mother, said the Crumbleys should get the maximum punishment allowed.
"They should be held accountable," Soave said. "Everybody involved will be held accountable, as they should be. It's not just one person who contributed to this."
Buck Myre, Tate Myre’s father, said the Crumbleys "absolutely" should be charged.
"They bought a gun for their kid, right, and he used it to murder, murder our kids, man,” Buck Myre said. "I don't care if there's not a law out there or not. It's crazy."
Also in attendance at the press conference was Meghan Gregory, the mother of Oxford High student Keegan Gregory, who was hiding in a bathroom with Shilling when the shooter came in and ordered Shilling to come out of the stalls before shooting him. Keegan Gregory was not shot, but has struggled to recover after seeing the shooter kill Shilling.
"I absolutely do" think they should face charges, Meghan Gregory said. "I think they're one of the three that needs to be held accountable."
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(Detroit News staff Writers Jennifer Chambers and Hannah Mackay contributed.)
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