DETROIT — A three-judge panel of the Michigan Court of Appeals on Tuesday heard oral arguments about whether there is sufficient evidence to order the parents of a former Oxford High School student to face involuntary manslaughter charges for 2021 mass shooting at the school, focusing largely on what James and Jennifer Crumbley didn't do.
The Crumbleys each face four involuntary manslaughter charges connected to the deaths of four Oxford High students in the Nov. 30, 2021 shooting: 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.
Prosecutors have argued the Crumbleys were grossly negligent in buying their then-15-year-old son a handgun and ignoring his mental state.
James and Jennifer Crumbley's attorneys, Mariell Lehman and Shannon Smith, appealed after four counts of involuntary manslaughter were bound over to the Oakland County Circuit Court, arguing prosecutors did not meet the probable cause standard required to bind the case over for trial. They said the Crumbleys had no reason to believe their son posed a threat to himself or others, so they were not legally responsible for anything he did.
The Michigan Court of Appeals originally denied the appeal, noting they did not believe it needed to be heard. When the case went to the Michigan Supreme Court, the justices sent it back to the Court of Appeals for the judges to determine whether the couple should stand trial.
During a hearing Tuesday, the Court of Appeals judges heard oral arguments and will make a decision on the case at a later date.
The judges’ questions Tuesday mainly focused on what James and Jennifer Crumbley didn’t do. They didn’t seek mental health care for 15-year-old Ethan Crumbley when he said he was having hallucinations, they did not take him home the day of the shooting and they did not look in his backpack to see if he had the gun with him, the judges said.
“What we’re looking at is what actions or inactions did the two defendants have that led to this shooting,” Judge Christopher 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.”
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.”
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, Shada said. James Crumbley gave him 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.”
Murray said 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.
But Lehman and Smith argued that there were not 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.”
Extending that kind of liability for something like failing to open a backpack opens up unlimited liability to every parent across the state, she said.
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 gun store testified about the purchase and he pointed to paperwork, the receipt and messages about the gun being an early Christmas present.
Parents of the children killed in the shooting at the high school and community members were attending a nearby news conference over civil litiation in the Oxford shooting.
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 news conference was Meghan Gregory, the mother of Oxford student Keegan Gregory, who was hiding in a bathroom with Justin Shilling when the shooter came in and ordered Justin to come out of the stalls before shooting him. Keegan was not shot, but has struggled to recover after seeing the shooter kill Justin.
“I absolutely do (think they should face charges),” Gregory said. “I think they're one of the three that needs to be held accountable."
Oxford parent Andrea Jones 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.
