FILE - Judge Kwame Rowe presides over the sentencing hearing of Ethan Crumbley, Friday, Dec. 8, 2023, in Pontiac, Mich. (AP Photo/Carlos Osorio, Pool, File)
Michigan school shooter loses appeal in bid to withdraw guilty plea in 4 deaths
PONTIAC, Mich. (AP) 鈥 A Michigan court said Tuesday it won’t accept an appeal from a school shooter who was sentenced to life in prison in 2023 for killing four students and wounding others.
FILE - Judge Kwame Rowe presides over the sentencing hearing of Ethan Crumbley, Friday, Dec. 8, 2023, in Pontiac, Mich. (AP Photo/Carlos Osorio, Pool, File)
PONTIAC, Mich. (AP) 鈥 A Michigan court said Tuesday it won’t accept an appeal from a school shooter who was sentenced to life in prison in 2023 for killing four students and wounding others.
The Court of Appeals turned down Ethan Crumbley’s application 鈥渇or lack of merit in the grounds presented.鈥
Crumbley pleaded guilty to the 2021 Oxford High School shooting. After he received a rare no-parole sentence, a new legal team asked a judge to set aside the life term and also allow Crumbley to withdraw the guilty plea.
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Oakland County Judge Kwame Rowe said no. He said Crumbley鈥檚 plea was 鈥渒nowingly, voluntarily, and accurately given.鈥
Crumbley, now 19, was 15 when he committed the mass shooting on Nov. 30, 2021. Earlier that day, his parents were summoned to discuss violent drawings and agonizing phrases written on a math assignment. They didn鈥檛 take him home, and no one checked his backpack for a gun.
Crumbley’s appellate lawyers claim that his brain development was likely diminished by his mother’s use of alcohol. Prosecutors, however, noted that fetal alcohol spectrum disorder was not raised by a psychologist who testified on Crumbley’s behalf during the sentencing phase.
His parents, James and Jennifer Crumbley, are for involuntary manslaughter. They were accused of making a gun accessible at home and failing to foresee that the mass shooting was possible.
