(WXYZ) — Oxford High School shooter Ethan Crumbley will be in court for a Miller Hearing this week before he is sentenced for the shooting that killed four students.
The hearing is set for Thursday and Friday at Oakland County court, and could also happen Tuesday if the hearing is not able to be finished in two days.
In October, Crumbley pleaded guilty to all 24 charges in the deadly shooting at Oxford High School in November 2021. Tate Myre, 16, Hana St. Juliana,14, Madisyn Baldwin, 17, and Justin Shilling, 17, were killed in the shooting. Seven other people were injured.
The Miller hearing is a pre-sentencing hearing and comes after the U.S. Supreme Court in 2012 decided in Miller v. Alabama that mandatory life sentences without parole for people under the age of 18 violate the Eighth Amendment.
In 2022, the Michigan Supreme Court also ruled that no-parole life sentences violate the state's ban on cruel or unusual punishment for people 18 and younger.
However, prosecutors can still pursue life sentences for 18-year-olds, but a hearing must be held where defense lawyers can present evidence and other factors. That's why the Miller hearing will happen.
Earlier this month, defense lawyers had asked a judge to dismiss the life without parole condition and asked that victims not be able to speak in the hearing and that Crumbley be able to wear street clothes instead of jail clothes. The judge denied all of those motions.
