Michigan school shooter loses appeal in bid to withdraw guilty plea in 4 deaths

PONTIAC—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 “for lack of merit in the grounds presented.”

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.

Oakland County Judge Kwame Rowe said no. He said Crumbley’s plea was “knowingly, voluntarily, and accurately given.”

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’t 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 serving 10-year prison terms for involuntary manslaughter. They were accused of making a gun accessible at home and failing to foresee that the mass shooting was possible.