JR Afternoon with Chris Renwick
The Twists in Jennifer Crumbly’s Appeal Battle
Meanwhile, she's been behind bars for 10 months. Now the mother of the Oxford High School shooter is asking a judge to toss her conviction for her role in the shooting. Jennifer Crumbly is citing several issues with her trial as the basis for her request. W J R senior news analyst Marie Osborne has that story. Hi, Marie. Hi, Chris. So Jennifer Crumbly has asked a judge to throw out her conviction because she says the prosecution team deliberately withheld evidence from her about an alleged secret deal made with school witnesses to testify against her. Those agreements were never disclosed at the trial, never made known to the defendant's legal team. Crumbly's new appellate attorney says the whole thing was unlawful, saying the school witnesses were hoping to avoid prosecution over their own acts and therefore had a motive to testify in a way, quote, "so as to shift responsibility toward Mrs. Crumbly and away from themselves." So at the center of this argument are two people, the former Oxford High School counselor Sean Hopkins and the former dean of students, Nicholas E. Jack, who the Crumbly's attorneys say made crucial mistakes on the day of the shooting. You will remember these are the two people that the Crumblys met the morning of the shooting before it happened where their son was called to their office with the backpack that had the gun in it, but nobody looked in the backpack and the parents refused to take home their son. They're the two school officials who signed confidential agreements allegedly with the Oakland County prosecutor's office. Now the Oakland County prosecutor's office has long defended its handling of the case against James and Jennifer Crumbly. They have released a statement on this and among other things they say, quote, "no witnesses were given anything for their testimony. There was no immunity. These witnesses testified without any promises or protection whatsoever. The Michigan court of appeals has already reviewed the legal issues raised by Jennifer Crumbly and rejected them. That is according to the prosecutor's office. This isn't over though. The judge still has to rule on whether or not her conviction can be tossed out. And Chris, as you know, Jennifer Crumbly, her husband James, both serving up to 15 years in prison for their role in that shooting. It does seem unlikely though that this appeal will be granted based on the higher courts ruling. Well, this is according to the prosecutor's office. So we'll see what this judge, this judge has standing on this. He can rule or she can rule on this particular issue. And again, the issue is were those two people given any kind of protection before they appeared in court? And by the way, those two people have never been interviewed by any kind of investigative team either. So that's another matter here that still is out there. Yeah. And that comes as maybe now Attorney General Dan and Essel would take this case up to look into what happened. Yeah.
December 2, 2024 ~ Jennifer Crumbly seeks to overturn her conviction, alleging evidence was withheld. Chris Renwick and Marie Osborne report that her appeal was previously rejected, and a judge will decide her fate.