Mom of Oxford shooter asks to be released from prison while appeal is pending

Kara Berg, The Detroit News on Dec 26, 2024

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DETROIT — The mother of the Oxford High School shooter has asked an Oakland County judge to be released from prison while her appeal and request for a new trial or a dismissal of her charges is pending.

In a motion filed Thursday in Oakland County Circuit Court, Jennifer Crumbley asked Judge Cheryl Matthews to allow her to be released from prison on bond while her appeal is being decided because "she did not commit any crime recognized by law."

"It would be grossly unfair and unjust to keep Mrs. Crumbley locked up for years while this matter proceeds slowly (likely for years) before the appellate courts," her attorney, Michael Dezsi, wrote in the motion.

Crumbley asked Dec. 2 that Matthews throw out her involuntary manslaughter conviction from earlier this year and either grant her request for an acquittal or give her a chance at a new trial.

Dezsi outlined in the Dec. 2 filing multiple reasons why the verdict against his client should be thrown out or she should be given a new trial, including ineffective counsel; agreements prosecutors made with two key witnesses from Oxford schools that weren't shared with her attorney and raise questions about their credibility; and that she owed "no legal duty to the victims of her son's acts."

Crumbley was convicted of four counts of involuntary manslaughter Feb. 6 in connection with her son Ethan Crumbley's mass shooting at Oxford High School in November 2021 that left four students dead: Hana St. Juliana, 14; Justin Shilling, 17; Tate Myre, 16; and Madisyn Baldwin, 16. Crumbley and her husband, James Crumbley, who was convicted by a separate jury after his wife's trial, were sentenced to 10 to 15 years in prison.

Prosecutors said Crumbley, the first parent in the United States convicted of involuntary manslaughter in connection with a mass shooting carried out by her child, acted in a grossly negligent way in storing a gun and ammunition where her son could access it and that she failed to control her child to keep him from harming others.

The shooter was sentenced to life without parole in prison.

"As Mrs. Crumbley set forth in her Motion for Judgment of Acquittal, this case has been bungled starting with the prosecution’s overreaching charge of involuntary manslaughter of a parent for the intentional criminal acts of her son who was charged and treated as an adult in the eyes of the law," Dezsi wrote in Thursday's motion. "Apart from the prosecution’s unfounded charges of involuntary manslaughter, the verdict in this case is further undermined by the intentional and deliberate suppression of secret agreements entered into by the prosecution with its two star witnesses."

The star witnesses, Oxford High School counselor Shawn Hopkins and former Dean of Students Nick Ejak, were given proffer agreements by prosecutors that said they would not use anything Ejak and Hopkins told them during an initial meeting when considering whether or not to charge them. Crumbley's defense attorney, Shannon Smith, was not given the proffer agreements before the trial, as Dezsi argued is required by law. Hopkins and Ejak met with the shooter and his parents the morning of the shooting.

Prosecutors have maintained that they had no duty to share the proffer agreements because they did not make any promises of immunity.

Dezsi argued that because Crumbley is not likely to pose a danger to others and because her appeal raises a substantial question of law or fact, she should be released while the appeal is pending.

"Moreover, it is not the role of this Court, or the Court of Appeals for that matter, to invent some policy-based duty upon which to pin criminal liability onto a parent for the intentional criminal acts of a son. To the extent that the Court may disagree with Defendant, such a duty, if any, would have to be first recognized by the Michigan Supreme Court," Dezsi wrote. "At this point, Mrs. Crumbley has been in custody for over three years. Given the overtly tenuous nature of these charges, the prosecution should not reap the reward of a lengthy unlawful incarceration before the Michigan Supreme Court can hear and decide this case."

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