PONTIAC, Mich. – Should the Oxford High School shooter be allowed parole? After days of testimony, the community is waiting to hear a decision on the fate of the confessed school shooter.
Read: Decision coming Friday in Oxford shooter’s Miller hearing regarding sentence
The now 17-year-old is facing mandatory sentences of life in prison without parole in connection with the November 2021 massacre, but his sentencing must be handled differently because he is a minor, even though he was convicted as an adult.
The decision will be made Friday, Sept. 29. The judge has two choices -- life without parole or a term of years (likely 40-60 years behind bars). If he gets the minimum sentence, he’d be eligible for parole in his 50s.
The shooter was 15 years old at the time of the shooting, which is one of many factors the judge is considering. His family and home environments are also being considered.
Oakland County Prosecutor Karen McDonald is fighting to keep the shooter behind bars for the rest of his life.
“I campaigned on treating kids like kids. We seek to do that every day in this office,” McDonald said. “In fact, when I took office, I reversed the prior prosecutor’s decision on life without parole for 26 individuals and agreed to a term of years.”
But McDonald said the case of the Oxford High School shooting is very different.
“You can’t state that belief and ignore the actual events of this case, and try to pretend that we can just group this crime and this individual in the group of all the other juvenile lifers, you cannot,” McDonald said.
A lot of information came out in court about his video recordings and his intentions. McDonald said these details were important for her in terms of presenting her case.
“One of the reasons we have at its core, the heightened scrutiny is based on the inability of the juvenile brain to understand consequences and in this case, this individual not only understood them, he wrote about them frequently,” McDonald said. “He knew that Michigan did not have a death penalty. He knew what prison he would go to. He searched about that. He had researched the average time that it took officers to respond to a school shooting and used that information to kill more people.”
Among the evidence was a video the shooter recorded the day before the shooting, in which he identified himself as the nation’s next mass school shooter and outlined his plan and motive for the massacre.
McDonald said his plan to kill was well planned out and she doesn’t think mental illness played a role.
“He does not have a diagnosable illness pursuant to a statutory defense. And that’s all we know, but I’m certainly not going to say there isn’t something wrong. Nor would I say that he didn’t face some obstacles and challenges in the way he was raised. But I can’t ignore what happened and I think no one can,” McDonald said. “I’m also not doing my job if I don’t actually present what is it about this case and this individual that is rare, and different, and horrible. It’s unconscionable. It’s unimaginable, but it happened.”
In court, the defense tried to show the judge the shooter was not “irreparably corrupt,” and could be rehabilitated. When reached for comment, the defense attorney said they did not want to say anything on the case ahead of Friday’s decision.
The judge is set to formally sentence the shooter Dec. 8.