Abdul El-Sayed Proposed Commuting All Sentences For Juveniles Facing Life In Prison. The Plan Would Grant Early Release To Some Of Michigan’s Most Violent Killers.
Alana Goodman
Washington Free Beacon
December 16, 2025
Abdul El-Sayed, a candidate in the 2026 Michigan Democratic primary for the state’s open Senate seat, campaigned in 2018 to commute all sentences for juveniles sentenced to life in prison in the state—a policy that would grant early release for a school shooter, a child rapist and murderer, and other heinous killers.
El-Sayed promised the reforms during his unsuccessful bid for Michigan governor, saying he would “commute all sentences for juveniles sentenced to life in prison and raise the age of adult prosecution” from 17 to 18, as well as “explore commutation options” for any juvenile sentenced to more than 25 years and reduce the state’s “maximum sentence to 25 years” for minors, according to an archived copy of his campaign website.
The proposal could have forced the early release of some of the Great Lakes State’s most horrific and notorious killers, like school shooter Ethan Crumbley. Then a sophomore at Oxford High School in Oxford Township, Mich., Crumbley killed four students and injured seven others in an extensively planned mass shooting in 2021. He shot many of the victims execution-style, firing at them multiple times after they were on the ground. In the days leading up to the attack, Crumbley filmed himself torturing baby birds, mused in his journal that he wanted to “hear the screams of the children as I shoot them,” and searched online for “What is worst prison sentence you can get in Michigan.”
Oakland County Circuit Court judge Kwamé Rowe sentenced Crumbley to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Rowe said Crumbley showed an “obsession with violence” that made rehabilitation unlikely, and said the killer’s motivation was to be known “as the biggest school shooter in Michigan history.” Rowe would not have been able to sentence Crumbley to more than 25 years in prison if El-Sayed had been able to institute his reforms.
Another murderer, Jason Benjamin Symonds, raped 5-year-old Nicole VanNoty, beat her to death with a metal rod, and buried her in a garbage bag in 1994. He was sentenced to life in prison the following year and was denied parole two years ago. He would have been released no later than 2019 had El-Sayed’s plan been reality.
Less than two months before his 18th birthday in 1999, Marc Osborne raped and murdered his classmate Jessica Ledford, earning a life sentence. He will first be eligible for parole in 2039, but under El-Sayed’s proposed sentencing guidelines, he would already have been back on the streets last year.
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El-Sayed did not respond to a Free Beacon request for comment.
Read more here.
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