Lawyers representing the father of school shooter Ethan Crumbley asked a court to change the venue of his trial after his ex-wife Jennifer was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter.
James Crumbley, 47, is accused of making a gun available to his son Ethan Crumbley and failing to provide him with mental health care.
The 15-year-old killed four students and injured more during a mass shooting at Oxford High School in 2021.
In Oakland County Court on Wednesday, Judge Cheryl Matthews heard arguments from his defense attorneys who believe he can’t get a fair trial in the county and whether two students injured in the attack should be able to testify against him.
Crumbley’s attorney Mariell Lehman argued that the student’s testimony is irrelevant and unnecessary, given that a teacher and an assistant principal will testify.
James Crumbley enters the courtroom during his motion hearing at the Oakland County Courthouse, Wednesday, Feb. 21, 2024, in Pontiac, Michigan.
Crumbley, 47, is accused of making a gun available to his son Ethan Crumbley and failing to get mental health care for his son.
Lehman argued: “While I cannot imagine what those students experienced, their testimony is not relevant to the James Crumbley case.
“He is not accused of shooting or injuring anyone. The primary purpose of the testimony is to inflame the jury’s emotions.
Deputy Prosecutor Marc Keast disagreed and said prosecutors may not visit the students.
He said they may be needed in case other witnesses are unavailable for various reasons.
Defense attorneys have been pushing for the venue to be changed, and Lehman said in a court filing last week that: ”
In a court filing last week, Lehman wrote: “They have been clearly convicted in the court of public opinion.”
Jury selection in the father’s trial is scheduled for March 5. It is unusual in Michigan to change the location of a trial or bring in jurors from another county.
Hundreds of people will be summoned to court as part of the jury selection process. It took about two days to pick a jury for Jennifer Crumbley’s trial.
Crumbley’s father is charged with four counts of involuntary manslaughter in the shooting, which claimed the lives of Justin Shilling, Madisyn Baldwin, Tate Myre and Hana St. Juliana, and injured seven other people.
Ethan Crumbley pleaded guilty to his crimes and is currently serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole, after murdering four classmates in the Oxford High School shooting in 2021.
Justin Shilling, 17, (left) and Tate Myre, 16, (right) were two of four students killed in the senseless shooting at Oxford High School in Michigan.
Madisyn Baldwin, 17 (left) and Hana St Juliana, 14 (right), were killed in the 2021 shooting at Oxford High School in suburban Detroit.
On the morning of November 30, 2021, school staff were concerned about a violent drawing of a gun, a bullet, and a wounded man, accompanied by desperate phrases, on Ethan Crumbley’s math homework.
His parents were called to the school for a meeting, but they did not take the boy home.
A few hours later, Ethan pulled a gun from his backpack and shot 10 students and a teacher. No one had checked the backpack.
The gun was the 9mm Sig Sauer that his father had bought him just four days earlier. Her mother had taken her son to a shooting range that same weekend.
After the shooting, a search of the teen’s home found his room in disarray, with paper targets from a shooting range on the wall.
On a table next to his bed was an empty whiskey bottle. At the time of the attack she was six years under the legal drinking age in the United States.
Jennifer Crumbley (right, with her attorney Shannon Smith) appeared stunned as the jury read her guilty verdict, becoming the first mother convicted in the school shooting of her son.
Crumley’s parents, James and Jennifer, were charged in connection with the shooting.
The safe he used to store his Sig Sauer pistol was empty on his parents’ bed.
There were two other weapons in a separate safe that could be unlocked with the code 0-0-0.
During Jennifer Crumbley’s trial, the court heard that Crumbley was more interested in an extramarital relationship, her horses and nights out on the town than spending time with her son.
Crumbley told her lover that she had “failed miserably” as a mother after her son was arrested for the murders.
He told the packed courtroom: ‘What I did. My actions were because of what I chose to do. I couldn’t stop myself, I don’t take away from anyone who could have stopped me.
Jurors in Jennifer Crumbley’s manslaughter trial saw disturbing drawings by her son, the mass shooter.
Chilling diary entries also written by Crumbley include drawings of a gun pointed at a girl’s head.
‘They didn’t know and I didn’t tell them what I planned to do, so they’re not to blame for what I did.
‘I’m a really bad person. I have done terrible things that no one should ever do, I have lied. I’ve hurt a lot of people, that’s what I’ve done.
‘Whatever the phrase, I plan to be better. I’ll change, I may not show it now but I’m trying.
‘All I want is for the people I hurt to have a final feeling of guilt that justice has been done in any capacity.
‘Whatever sentence they ask for, I ask you to impose it on me, I want them to be happy, to feel safe. I don’t want you to worry another day. Very sorry. I can’t turn my back on him.’
In a journal, the shooter wrote about his desire to see students suffer and the likelihood of spending his life in prison. The day before the shooting he recorded a video in which he declared what he would do the next day.
Jennifer Crumbley will be sentenced on April 9 and could face up to 60 years in state prison.