Jennifer Crumbley asks judge to order son to testify as jury selection begins

Jennifer Crumbley wants the judge to order her son to testify at her trial, along with three psychiatrists he spoke to following the deadly mass shooting he carried out at Oxford High School in 2021, according to a new court filing.

While waiting for jury selection to begin Tuesday, the filing shows, the mom got bad news at 9:29 a.m. That's when her lawyer got an email from her son's lawyers, "confirming that the shooter will not waive any privilege or confidentiality." That means he doesn't want any of his medical records used at his mom's trial on confidentiality grounds.

If the judge sides with the shooter's attorneys, whatever he said to his psychiatrists is also off limits — though Jennifer Crumbley's lawyer has asked a judge to order the doctors to testify, maintaining her client will not get a fair trial without their testimony or that of her son.

Meanwhile, the son, Ethan Crumbley, who admitted guilt, has two new lawyers who are advocating on his behalf, potentially to the detriment of his mom.

"For now, we are making sure all parties know that Ethan (Crumbley) has constitutionally protected rights, even at his parents' trials," attorney Jacqueline Ouvry with the State Appellate Defender's Office wrote in an email to the Free Press.

Ouvry's email came one day after she wrote a letter to the judge in the parents' case, stating: "Given Ethan Crumbley’s ongoing appeal and the substantial overlap in the subject matter in these three cases, we will advise Ethan to invoke his right to remain silent, should he be called to testify in either pending trial."

Here's what happened in court today

Jennifer Crumbley is the first parent in America charged and tried in a mass school shooting. She and her husband, James, who goes to trial in March, are charged with involuntary manslaughter for buying their son the gun that he used in the 2021 Oxford High School shooting that left four people dead and injured six other students and a teacher.

Prosecutors are seeking to hold the parents responsible for the deaths of Hana St. Juliana, 14; Tate Myre, 16; Madisyn Baldwin, 17; and Justin Shilling, 17.

"This trial is obviously very stressful for everyone involved," Oakland County Circuit Judge Cheryl Matthews said before the first set of 50 prospective jurors entered the room.

A pool of 300 prospective jurors was summoned for the historic case, with both sides hoping to whittle that number down to 12 jurors who will decide the case, and five alternates.

By noon Tuesday, a pool of more than 50 individuals entered the courtroom, heard jury instructions and then took their oaths — promising to set aside any beliefs, emotions or biases, and decide the case based only on the evidence presented at trial.

Matthews then excused everyone for a lunch break, then begged the jury pool not to discuss the case with anyone.

"This is the moment that strikes fear in my heart," Matthews said as she excused the jury pool and directed them to the cafeteria.

She asked them to "pinky swear" not to discuss the case, go on social media or look at any media coverage of the case.

"We need your help. This is a big deal. It's important to both sides." Matthews said.

Guns are an early issue in jury selection

In the afternoon, the topic of guns heavily dominated jury selection, even though the judge stressed to the prospective jurors: "We are not here to decide if people should have guns."

But after Matthews asked the pool whether anyone had strong opinions about guns that she should know about, multiple hands went up.

One woman said: "I don't like guns" and "We know the gun (in this case) wasn't secure." The judge responded: "No, we don't know that." Still, the woman expressed concerns about a gun not being secured, stating: "If someone got a hold of a gun, I wouldn't excuse that." The prospective juror was sent home.

Another woman said, "I don't believe in anyone having a gun at all." She was excused, too.

So was a man who said he didn't have a problem with people owning guns, noting his grown son who lives with him has one. But, he raised concerns about whether the Oxford school shooting was preventable, and how the teenage shooter got a hold of the gun, stating: "It could have easily  been avoided."

The judge said, "You don't know what happened. ... That's for you to decide."

The judge also gave him an analogy to consider: If a son took his father's gun, and shot someone with it, is it the dad's fault?

The prospective juror concluded the dad would bear responsibility if the child were a minor, stating: "It's my job to protect him and others." He was dismissed.

Parental responsibility was mentioned multiple times during jury selection, as the judge asked the prospective jurors to consider whether a parent is responsible for their child smashing a neighbor's window with a baseball.

One man in the jury box said comparing a baseball to a gun is a bad example.

About some of the potential jurors

The topic of parental responsibility weighed heavily on prospective jurors. The panel of 17 individuals who were questioned Tuesday included mostly parents, including one woman who said: “I have a 10-year-old autistic son … when I think about this case I feel rage.”

Still, she said she believes she can be fair and impartial.

Jury selection ended at 4:30 p.m. Tuesday with 17 potential jurors in the box, including:

• A father of two grown children who owns a 12-gauge shotgun for hunting, and said that "some of the adults in our society aren't taking responsibility for their kids' actions."

• An urgent care doctor who owns multiple guns, has lost two loved ones to suicide by a gun and said, "I've seen a lot of gun violence."

• A former university police officer who is now a court referee.

Neither the prosecution nor the defense exercised any of their peremptory challenges Tuesday to dismiss jurors for no reason. Each side gets five such challenges.

The day ended with Oakland County Prosecutor Karen McDonald addressing the panel, telling them: "Everybody thinks they know the facts ... but you gotta wait until you hear the evidence. ... It is our burden to prove that Jennifer Crumbley is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt ... that's our burden, and I embrace it."

And like the judge, McDonald stressed the case is not about gun rights, or safe storage laws.

'"We're not here to decide how you should store a gun," McDonalds said, adding: "and I'm not here saying, 'I only want jurors who say guns are bad.' "

She stressed: "This case is about gross negligence."

Jennifer Crumbley's lawyer, Shannon Smith, has not yet addressed the jury pool. Jury selection resumes at 9 a.m. Wednesday. The judge said she hopes to have a jury seated by the end of the day Wednesday.

The battle over Ethan Crumbley's testimony

At issue for the mom's defense lawyer is that her son's text messages to a friend and journal entries are going to be admitted at trial. In those texts and his journal, her son claimed that his parents ignored his pleas to get him help for mental health issues, a theme the prosecution has been hammering since the parents were arrested more than two years ago.

The mom's lawyer, Shannon Smith, argues that if the prosecution gets to admit those text messages and journal entries, then she should be allowed an opportunity to rebut them. To do that, she argues, she must question the shooter and his psychiatrists about statements he allegedly made that contradict his claims that his parents ignored his pleas for help.

"The specific evidence would contradict claims in the text messages that have been deemed admissible between the shooter and his friend," Smith wrote, in her latest filing. "The statements that have been deemed admissible in the journal and the texts are tantamount to testimony by the shooter because they are being admitted as substantive evidence. As such, it is critical that defense counsel be able to impeach this crucial evidence, or it simply, cannot come in."

Smith stressed: "Failure to impeach the evidence from the text messages and journal entries will deprive Jennifer Crumbley of her constitutional rights. Specifically, she will be deprived of a fairtrial."

Psychiatrists' lawyers may ask that their testimony be blocked

In her filing, Smith also disclosed another development that caused her concern. On Monday, two lawyers from Easter Seals noted in a court filing that they are representing the shooter's two jail psychiatrists in light of the subpoenas they received to testify.

"It is anticipated they will be raising issues as to privilege and asking this Court to order whether or not the doctors can testify," wrote Smith, who urged the judge to order the psychiatrists to testify.

The shooter's mental health is a crucial factor in the mom's case as the prosecution has long argued that James and Jennifer Crumbley ignored a troubled son who was depressed, lonely and hallucinating. And instead of getting him help, they say, they bought him a gun — which he used in the shooting.

Here's why Ethan Crumbley's testimony is crucial to the parents' cases:

If he does not testify, the defense cannot question him about whether his parents influenced his decision to shoot up his school or played a role in the shooting — a topic he addressed at his sentencing hearing last month, when he told the judge: "We are all here because of me today … because of what I chose to do. … My parents did not know what I planned to do, they are not at fault."

The mom's lawyer argues that the shooter's medical records will also help bolster that claim. And interviews he had with psychiatrists can show that he is not reliable, Smith has previously argued in court records.

According to courtroom testimony and court records, the shooter made potentially damning admissions to one psychiatrist by allegedly stating that he never asked his parents for therapy, and admitted that he lied when he texted a friend about asking for such help.

"This information is clearly critical to the Crumbleys, who have been criticized repeatedly by the prosecution for not listening to the shooter’s request for therapy," Smith has argued in past court documents.

Ethan Crumbley, who was 15 when he carried out the massacre, pleaded guilty to all his crimes and was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole last month. He is appealing his sentence.

"Our criminal legal system includes a constitutional right to an appeal and a lawyer for that appeal," Ouvry, one of two public defenders assigned to the appeal, said in an email to the Free Press. "This right is important to make sure the process is fair, correct and legitimate."

What the shooter wrote

Here are some of  the text messages and journal entries that the defense maintains the shooter, his medical records and psychiatrists can help refute:

• "I am mentally and physically dying," the shooter texted a friend one night, months before the shooting. "I am going to ask my parents to go to the doctor tomorrow … but this time I’m going to tell them about the voices."

• "They make me feel like I'm the problem," the shooter texted the same friend in another exchange. "My mom makes everyone feel like a piece of s---. I actually asked my dad to take me to the doctor the other day, and he just gave me some pills and said to 'suck it up.' My mom laughed when i told her."

• "I will cause the biggest school shooting in Michigan’s history. I will kill everyone I f------ see," the shooter wrote in his journal. "I have fully mentally lost it after years of fighting my dark side. My parents won’t listen to me about help or a therapist."

• "I have zero help with my mental problems and it’s causing me to shoot the school," the shooter wrote in another journal entry. "My parents won’t listen to me.”

Contact Tresa Baldas: tbaldas@freepress.com

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Jennifer Crumbley wants son, Ethan, to testify; jury selection begins