With regard to Jennifer Crumley,
it is the sense of this court,
Miss Crumley, that you serve 10 to 15 years with
the Michigan Department of Corrections.
You will have credit for
858 days. State costs are
$272 as a crime victims rights fee of
$130.00.
You and your agents may not have any contact with
the families of Madison Baldwin,
Tate, Mayor Hannah St., Juliana and Justin Schilling.
I will issue another ruling with regard to contact
with your son, the shooter.
Excuse me. As as to defendant James Cromley,
it is the sentence of this court
that you served 10 to 15 years with the Michigan
Department of Corrections.
That you receive credit for
858 days. That you pay state costs in the matter
of
270 to $2.00. That there is a crime victims rights
fee of
$130.00. That you or your agents have no contact with
the families of Madison Baldwin.
Tape Mirror, Hana St. Juliana
and Justin Shelly. You're watching a Michigan courtroom where the
judge has just sentenced the parents of a Michigan school
shooter to 10 to 15 years in prison for their
roles in their son's attack.
The judge said she thought and prayed about this case
and reviewed the guidelines.
But those guidelines, she says,
did not take into account the deep emotional wounds and
suffering that stemmed from the attack,
nor the effect the attack had on the wounded and
the ripple effects beyond that.
I want to bring back AB CS Trevor Alt outside
that court in Michigan,
along with ABC News legal contributor Shawna Lloyd for more
Trevor.
I want to start with just the historic nature of
this case.
These are the first parents ever convicted in a school
shooting committed by their son.
And now we have their sentences going beyond the guidelines,
the judge saying 10 to 15 each.
What do you think?
Well, I it's absolutely not a slap on the wrist.
That is absolutely my first reaction.
Diane. This is a very serious sentence for what the
judge clearly believes were very serious crimes that impacted not
just those four students who were killed,
but as she stressed, all of those four students,
families, all of the many wounded in the school and
the thousands more in the community beyond it.
So this is clearly, in the judge's eyes,
not just a historic conviction,
but also a correct conviction.
And we heard her detail why she felt these parents
were so irresponsible in buying that weapon and celebrating that
they had purchased a weapon for their son as he
was showing all these red flags for his mental health,
failing to secure the gun.
She accused Jennifer Crumbly of being apathetic to her son
and how her son's mental health and failing to take
him from home from school that very morning here.
So not only does the judge feel that the the
sentence is correct,
but also she agreed with the
prosecution's recommendation. They had asked for 10 to 15 years
and they got 10 to 15 years.
And just to give some clarity here in terms of
the guidelines that the judge is referring to.
So involuntary manslaughter in the state of Michigan carries maximum
penalty of 15 years in prison.
But there are general guidelines as to what the sentence
might be.
Obviously, not all cases are going to be the most
extreme of 15 years.
Some will warrant a penalty even far less than that.
Generally, the recommendation is a maximum of about seven years.
Now in those cases where it seems to be a
bit more extreme,
the judge has that authority to go much further.
And she said, this one seems very clearly to be
an extreme case to exceed those guidelines.
So now, with the sentence of 10 to 15 years,
that means at a minimum,
now James and Jennifer Crumbly are going to be looking
at being in prison until late
2031, ten years after their son committed this heinous act.
They expressed their condolences to the family,
for the the families of the students that their son
killed.
But now they are the first American parents who are
also going to pay for their role,
not only for being necessarily bad parents,
as the judge had said,
not for being bad gun owners,
but for being criminally responsible for the deaths of these
four students.
Diane and Shawna, When the judge says 10 to 15
years,
what does that mean? What now determines whether it's 10
or 15 or somewhere in between?
What's going to happen is they're going to go before
the parole board.
They will set that and then they will also receive.
There is times for good behavior and other things that
can also keep that closer to the 10 as opposed
to the 15.
And Shawna, the judge,
opened almost immediately when she said she went on to
why she found
them culpable and why she found that they earned the
sentence.
And she said opportunity knocked louder and louder and was
ignored.
What did you make of that moment?
You know, I think this was the judge really looking
at each instance,
that she felt that they could have made a different
choice and that they ignored it.
And to her, that showed that the totality of this
really could have been stopped by the parent and that
it was not.
And therefore she felt that that warranted the sentence because
it wasn't one particular incident.
It was a series of incidents that led up to
this that they could have made changes and they chose
not to.
She also brought up that meeting that the Crumblies had
in the school that day that they were called in
by a counselor because of this disturbing drawing that their
son has had made. And they had this,
this 15 minute meeting. And she quoted Jennifer Crumbly is
saying,
are we done here after those,
you know, 15 minutes or whatever it was for that
meeting?
How much did that meeting just hours before the shooting
impact not only their cases where they both got convicted,
but now they're sentencing as well.
I mean, I think it was critical,
Diane, because it speaks to beyond the fact that they
had purchased the weapon for their son or they had
not necessarily been responsive to his mental health.
I mean this was about as close as you could
get to a cry for help when you have your
son called in for an emergency meeting to the point
that we know Jennifer Crumbly texted her husband James all
Caps emergency about this drawing in which he had drawn
the gun that they bought him and a person who
had been shot and was bleeding and rode out along
with the thoughts won't stop and blood everywhere he rode
out help me.
And according to the school officials who testified while the
parents showed up this was a very brief meeting.
They did not ask very many questions.
They seemed a little apathetic according to those school officials.
And then concluding it yes,
with not only are they not only we're not taking
our son home because Jennifer Crumbley said she needed to
get back to work and so did James,
even though Jennifer's boss said she did not need to
get back to work.
And James worked as a DoorDash delivery driver,
so he's had his own hours and could have taken
his son with him.
But Jennifer Crumbly saying are we done here?
Speaks to that apathy that the judge referred to where
it seemed that these parents not only were they
perhaps oblivious to their son's red flags,
but they also didn't even necessarily care about them.
And for that to happen less than two hours before
this school shooting happened,
it not only paints to the fact that they
were ignoring all of those signs,
but it was top of mind to the point that
when they learned a shooting had happened those two hours
later,
Jennifer texted her son Ethan don't do it,
and James, crumbly, shortly after,
raced home to check to see if the weapon was
still there.
So certainly there was enough to put it in their
mind that their son was capable of this when they
learned that a shooting had happened.
Whether or not they're ever going to admit that they
realize this was the possibility,
I don't know that we'll ever see the day.
Perhaps we will see an appeal.
But clearly this judge was swayed by the arguments of
the prosecution that these parents were grossly negligent,
not just once, but over and over again leading to
the shooting.
Shawna That said, we did hear during their trials and
today during Jennifer Crumbley's statement that the school asked them
if they were going to take their son home but
didn't tell them they had to take their son home.
And Jennifer Crumbley saying the school said he was not
a threat at that time.
So could this all open the door for more charges
or other impacts
against school officials here? You know,
I think what we're going to see,
Diane, is really going to be civil cases against the
school,
their lack of preparation, training or addressing the situation at
the time.
I think we will see a lot of civil suits
come out of this against the school.
I don't see it likely rising to a criminal level,
but there will absolutely be lawsuits in the civil arena
from the parents against the schools and the actions that
they took and releasing him back to the students potentially
not having him searched at the time.
Those things are going to definitely,
definitely warrant that type of litigation.
And Shawna, we saw two first of their kind cases,
now a first of its kind sentencing.
What kind of a precedent does this set 10 to
15 years for each of them?
I mean this, this, this sentencing really set a standard,
and this judge was very clear about what she saw
and why it warranted this level of a sentence.
Now, let's remember, Michigan does have a very specific statute
that gives parents a duty to require them to not
have their children injure others.
Not every state has this statute.
So I don't know that we're going to see wide,
sweeping charges in these school shootings.
However, what we might see is additional legislation to put
this on the books.
This may be something that legislators want to look at
to make sure that other parents can be held accountable
when it is a crime and that it's disegregious.