PONTIAC, Mich. – The Oxford High School shooter was once again ordered to remain lodged in jail during Friday’s monthly placement hearing as his sentencing hearing looms.
Each month, the now-16-year-old shooter must appear in court for a hearing in which the judge decides whether to continue to lodge him at the Oakland County Jail instead of a juvenile facility. The shooter’s attorney previously requested that he be moved to a juvenile detention center because he is a minor, but an Oakland County judge denied that request in March 2022 and has since continued to keep the shooter in jail.
Still, the judge’s decision to keep the shooter at the Oakland County Jail must be revisited every 30 days. These hearings will continue until the shooter is sentenced for the 24 felonies that he pleaded guilty to in October 2022, including first-degree murder and terrorism charges.
The shooter appeared before a judge on Friday, April 14, for another placement hearing. He was ordered to remain lodged at the Oakland County Jail once again.
The shooter was previously scheduled to stand trial in January, where he intended to plead insanity after initially pleading not guilty to the charges against him. He has since pleaded guilty to all 24 felony counts against him in connection with the Nov. 30, 2021, mass shooting at Oxford High School, which left four students dead and seven people injured.
More: Transcript: Oxford shooter admits to premeditated murder, terrorism amid prosecutor questioning
Though the shooter was 15 years old when he murdered students and injured others, he was charged as an adult. He has since been convicted of the following:
- One count of terrorism causing death;
- Four counts of first-degree murder;
- Seven counts of assault with intent to murder; and
- 12 counts of possession of a firearm in the commission of a felony.
It is the first time that a U.S. school shooter has been convicted of terrorism.
Last November, the Oakland County Prosecutor’s Office filed a motion to request the harshest sentence possible for the shooter after he admitted to planning and executing the massacre. In that shooting, 14-year-old Hana St. Juliana, 16-year-old Tate Myre, 17-year-old Madisyn Baldwin and 17-year-old Justin Shilling were killed.
The prosecutor’s office affirmed then that is has not, and will not, offer sentence agreements or deals to the convicted shooter.
The shooter is expected to face sentencing this year. Before a sentence is handed down, the shooter will first appear for a Miller hearing on July 27, in which the judge will determine if the shooter’s age will have an impact on his sentencing at all.
The Miller hearing was initially scheduled for February, and then moved to June, but the dates did not work for the parties involved. The judge said on April 14 that the Miller hearing is tentatively scheduled for 9 a.m. on July 27.
The parents of the shooter are also facing criminal charges in connection with the fatal mass shooting. In addition to allegedly neglecting their son and his emotional and mental health needs, as prosecutors argue, James and Jennifer Crumbley are also accused of buying their son the handgun used in the shooting.
After months of the shooter’s parents attempting to get their case thrown out, the Michigan Court of Appeals recently upheld a ruling ordering them to stand trial on the four involuntary manslaughter charges they each face. In that decision, appellate judges shared harrowing new details from text messages between the shooter and his parents, and the shooter and his friend.
More: Here’s the text message timeline between Oxford shooter, parents, friend leading up to shooting
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