PONTIAC, Mich. (AP) — A Michigan judge who presided over the first convictions of parents in a U.S. school shooting strongly suggested Friday that prosecutors should have revealed agreements with two important trial witnesses.
But Judge Cheryl Matthews has not yet decided whether Jennifer and James Crumbley should get new trials as a result.
Matthews heard arguments from an appellate lawyer for James Crumbley, more than two months after a similar pitch from his wife’s attorney. The Crumbleys last year were separately convicted of involuntary manslaughter in the deaths of four students killed by their son at Oxford High School in 2021.
They were accused of negligence and failing to foresee that Ethan Crumbley was a risk to the school, especially after they bought a gun as a gift just days earlier and were confronted with his violent drawings a few hours before the tragedy.
The post-trial appeals have mostly centered on the Oakland County prosecutor’s failure to give defense lawyers agreements made with two school officials. Nick Ejak and Shawn Hopkins were promised that their statements to investigators after the shooting would not be used against them. They were not charged.
Ejak and Hopkins were key trial witnesses: They met with the Crumbleys and their son before the shooting and agreed that the boy could stay in school despite a macabre drawing with blood drops, a gun and desperate words, “The thoughts won’t stop. Help me.”
No one checked the 15-year-old’s backpack for a gun, though Ejak joked that it was heavy. Ejak and Hopkins told jurors that the meeting with parents was brief and that they didn’t want to take him home.
Lawyers for the parents argue that the failure to reveal the agreements before trial violated fundamental rules of the criminal justice system. Ejak and Hopkins could have been cross-examined about the deals, they say, and jurors could have used the information when assessing their credibility.
The judge said prosecutors “likely” violated the rules. Matthews said a decision about whether there should be new trials is weeks away.
Alona Sharon, an attorney for James Crumbley, acknowledged that the Oxford school shooting was “gut-wrenching” for the community.
“But our rules cannot bend to emotion,” Sharon told the judge. “If it does then our justice system has no integrity. And the rules mean nothing, and the Constitution means nothing. … The only remedy that can make him whole is a new trial.”
Assistant prosecutor Marc Keast again defended his office’s decision to not reveal the agreements before trial and said it wasn’t required. He said they were limited deals with Ejak and Hopkins, not total immunity.
Keast said jurors heard plenty of evidence about James Crumbley’s negligence before the shooting, information that had “absolutely nothing to do with Ejak or Hopkins.”
The Crumbleys are serving 10-year prison terms. Ethan Crumbley, now 18, is serving a life sentence after pleading guilty to murder and other crimes.