Judge sentences Colin Gray to 15 years in prison

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: I can safely say never before have I found my position less enviable than I do today. As you all are aware, this is the first case of its kind in the state of Georgia. As far as I'm aware, it's the second case of its kind in the nation. And what we're really referencing is this new phenomenon of parents being charged in conjunction with crimes that their children are committing. It's a divisive case, it's a divisive type of case where a parent is charged in conjunction with the crimes that their children committed, and Mr. Gray committed crimes, but his crimes are tethered to the tragedy committed by his son. And that makes the situation a little unique. I'll point out, the first 39 witnesses of Mr. Gray's trial did not mention Colin Gray. They did not testify about anything that Colin Gray did. It was the tragedy that he's tethered to from Colt. Again, Mr. Gray committed crimes, and he was convicted because of his failure to act and intervene. I want to talk for a second about just some principles in American justice. The highest level of criminal responsibility or culpability is for someone who willfully, knowingly, intentionally commits a crime. The lowest level of criminal culpability in our system is criminal negligence. You didn't intend to commit a crime, but you ignored foreseeable harm. You failed to act in a certain way, you failed to intervene, and there's an easy example. Take a premeditated murder. Someone plans a murder, they want to kill someone, and they follow through on that plan, and they shoot him with a gun and kill him. And then in the other situation, someone's playing around with a loaded gun, recklessly, negligently, and they accidentally shoot and kill someone. Those crimes aren't punished the same. One is intentional, one is negligent. I want to point out that every one of the 27 charges that Colin Gray was convicted of are criminal negligence, every one of them. Punishing criminal negligence is not easy, in part because they didn't intend to commit a crime. The punishment generally comes from the foreseeability of the harm, and from the damage that results. It is clear you failed as a parent. You did not provide a stable household. You did not have things in check with Marcy's issues and what the kids were being exposed to. You did not have Colt in activities that a boy should be in where he's making connections with other children in person, where he feels loved, where he feels accepted. You didn't monitor what was going on with him in the computer. You didn't have him in school. He was in your care his entire eighth grade year. And he didn't go to school. And what did he do each of those days he should have been in school? He watched and rewatched the school shooting trial of Nicholas Cruz. He fell deeper and deeper into this obsession. And he should have been in school every day, and that was a failure on your part. He didn't get any mental health counseling when it was obvious he needed some. None of those failures helped your case, but those aren't why you were convicted. You were convicted because the morning lights were flashing brighter and brighter. And you didn't get him help, and you didn't remove his access to the guns. I recognize that no parent believes that their child is capable of committing a heinous crime. No parent thinks that their child is going to be the next school shooter. But it became more and more obvious that something bad was going to happen. At a minimum, you should have believed that Colt would commit suicide. And you failed to do the simplest things to prevent this. You had gun locks, and you didn't use them. You could have got a hundred-something dollars safe and put the guns in the safe. If you had done that, you wouldn't be here today. You could have removed the ammo in the magazines from the house, and if you'd done that, you wouldn't be here today. You could have let someone else hold the guns while you got Colt help. If you'd done that, you wouldn't be here today. If you had done any of those things, Miss Jeremy, Mr. Aspinwall, Mason, Christian, would be here today. And your negligence didn't arise in an instant. It was repeated day after day. The entire first month of school was an opportunity to remove the guns to get Colt help. Again, sentencing for negligence is very difficult because there's not an intention to commit a crime. None of the crimes that you're convicted of require mandatory prison. And as I mentioned, the weight of your crimes is tethered and tied to the acts of someone else, your son. Two scenarios. You fail the same way in both. You fail to get Colt counseling. You fail to remove the guns from the house. In the one scenario, Colt changes his mind. Doesn't go through with it. You're not charged with any crime at all. Your very same failures, Colt goes through with it as he did, commits the atrocity, and the state's asking for 80 years confinement for you. But your actions are identical in each of those scenarios. My heart aches for everyone that was there that day, for all of you that have been impacted by it. But the law requires that I set aside a motion. I don't get the sentence with passion. I have a nearly impossible task of sentencing you without passion, despite the immeasurable heartache that you've caused. On September 4th, 2024, lives and families were forever altered. You are the but-for. But-for you failing to get Colt help. But-for your failure to remove access to the guns. This doesn't happen. September 4th would have been a normal day. Mr. Aspinwall, Ms. Erami, Mason, Christian, Mr. Phoenix, Natalie, Melanie, Taylor, Jackson, they all would have gone home as normal to have dinner with their loved ones. It's the but-for that the community has such outrage for you. But it matters that you didn't have actual knowledge that Colt was going to school to do that. It matters that you didn't intentionally commit a crime. It matters that you didn't plan an attack. It matters that you didn't seek to harm anyone. It matters that you didn't pull a trigger. as I indicated, all of your crimes are a form of criminal negligence. None of them require mandatory prison. I don't have a concern that you're going to commit future crimes. You're 55 years old and you have no criminal history. You didn't intend to commit these crimes that you've been convicted of. But the loss here is profound. But I still have to distinguish your acts from the malignant heart and the acts that Colt Gray committed upon the Apalachee School. For each of the murders in the second degree, I'm sentencing you to 15 years in confinement concurrent with one another. For each of the involuntary manslaughter, I'm sentencing you to 10 years confinement concurrent. For each non-merging cruelty to children, I'm sentencing you to 10 years in confinement concurrent. For each non-merging reckless conduct charge, I'm sentencing you to 12 months confinement concurrent. This is an aggregate sentence of 15 years in prison. I'm going to have the sentence filed presently. I'm required to advise you that you have certain post-conviction appellate rights. You have the right to a court-appointed attorney. If you need one to file a direct appeal or a motion for new trial, those have to be filed within 30 days of today's date. You have the right to file a petition for habeas corpus to challenge any violation of your constitutional rights or any legal errors. That has to be filed within four years of today's date. You have no right to a court-appointed attorney for a habeas corpus petition as it's a civil proceeding. I'll ask defense counsel to file a placeholder motion for you. If you need court-appointed counsel, make sure you apply so that you can comply with those 30-day deadlines. If your motion for new trial is denied, you have a right to a court-appointed counsel and can file an appeal from that within 30 days of that denial. of the court-appointed counsel. This only closes the legal chapter of this horror. The pain, the heartache, they continue. I understand that. I hope all of you know that this community loves you, and I ask that God gives you peace. Thank you. We're adjourned. [00:12:22] Speaker ?: We're adjourned. Thank you.