Greenspan: Justice requires fetal alcohol evaluation for Oxford shooter

An Oakland County judge is considering whether Oxford High School shooter Ethan Crumbley, who pleaded guilty to killing four classmates and shooting seven others in 2021 when he was 15, should be eligible for the most severe sentence available in Michigan: life without the possibility of parole.

As a forensic psychologist in California who has consulted or testified in similar cases around the country, I know what kind of mitigating evidence is likely to be considered relevant in such a proceeding. I was not hired to consult on this case, have not talked to the teen’s lawyers and have not seen any evidence other than what has thus far been presented in open court.

Nevertheless, I am more than a little surprised to find there has apparently been no effort to determine whether Crumbley has a brain condition known as Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD).

FASD is a neurodevelopmental condition caused by a pregnant woman consuming alcoholic beverages during her pregnancy. Because the developing fetus does not have a functioning liver for most of the pregnancy, it cannot metabolize alcohol and the baby’s brain essentially becomes pickled, with the possibility of significant damage occurring.

Obviously, binge drinking (defined for a woman as four or more drinks in a two-to-three-hour period) is likely to do the most damage, but no amount of alcohol consumption by a pregnant woman is considered safe. The pattern and severity of symptoms found in children and adults with FASD varies considerably, but there are always serious problems with learning, self-regulation and social functioning.

Typically, FASD is not diagnosed when other conditions such as ADHD and Emotional Disturbance are diagnosed. Studies have found as many as 20% of youthful offenders have undiagnosed FASD. Often the disorder is diagnosed for the first time only after the defendant has committed an awful crime.

That was true of a very similar tragedy in Parkland Florida, in which Nikolas Cruz (an adoptee whose birth mother was reportedly drunk virtually every day of the pregnancy) was spared the death penalty after three members of the jury voted for life, largely because of compelling expert testimony about his FASD diagnosis.

I don’t know if it is possible at this late date to further evaluate Crumbley, but I understand that it is being raised as a possibility after it was reported that he is exhibiting very disturbed behavior in the jail. Aside from the fact that undiagnosed FASD often turns out to have been a mitigating factor in cases such as this, there are other factors, including: his mother, Jennifer Crumbley, being arrested for a DUI in 2005, a few months preceding his conception, and prosecutors alleging frequent intoxication by both parents as he grew up.

Also, from casual observation it seems that the teen may have some of the dysmorphic facial characteristics associated with the disorder (although facial abnormalities are not always present and are not a diagnostic requirement).

While a competently done evaluation for fetal alcohol spectrum disorder might set a sentencing date back a few weeks, I would hope that most readers would agree that justice requires such an evaluation be conducted in a case of such importance.

Stephen Greenspan, Ph.D., is emeritus professor of educational psychology at the University of Connecticut. He is one of the most-cited authorities in the developmental disability field.