A Michigan judge declined Monday to move the 15-year-old charged with killing four students at Oxford High Schoolout of an adult jail, but she agreed that the jail needs to ensure the boy can’t hear or see grown-up inmates.
Ethan Crumbley’s attorney, Paulette Loftin, argued during his probable cause conference in Rochester Hills District Court that her client should be moved back to a juvenile facility, saying that he “should not be considered a menace to other juveniles.”
“This is someone who has never been in trouble before,” Loftin said. “This is not someone who has a history of assaulting kids his age or any other negative contact with his peers. This one isolated incident is all that we’re looking at here today.”
But District Judge Nancy Carniak sided with Assistant Oakland County Prosecutor Marc Keast, who countered that the nature of the charges and security risks mandate that Crumbley be held in an adult facility. Crumbley is charged as an adultwith killing four classmates and injuring seven other people in the Nov. 30 shooting at Oxford High School, about 30 miles (50 kilometers) north of Detroit.