Apalachee High School shooter loses attempt to appeal sentence
The Georgia teenager sentenced to life without parole after pleading guilty to murder and dozens of other charges in the Apalachee High School shooting has lost his attempt to appeal his sentence.
Colt Gray, 16, asked the Georgia Supreme Court to consider his age in a review of his July sentence.
The court’s nine justices unanimously rejected the request in a single-sentence order this month, giving no indication of why.
In his written request, Gray’s attorneys argued Barrow County Superior Court Judge Nicholas Primm was wrong to determine the teenager’s acts were so heinous they were unmitigable by his youth.
Gray’s attorneys said Primm imposed the harshest sentence available despite evidence of “violence, abuse, and neglect” at the hands of his parents, which “left Colt to descend into the extremist internet subculture that spurred his undeveloped juvenile mind to act as he did.”
“The superior court also appeared to disregard evidence that, when removed from his parents’ influence and given appropriate psychiatric care, Colt became cooperative, obedient, conscientious, and passive,” the teenager’s appeal request said.
Gray’s lead appellate attorney did not immediately respond Friday to questions about the case.
The teenager pleaded guilty in late July to all 55 felony charges against him and was sentenced several days later to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Gray fatally gunned down two of his classmates and two teachers and seriously wounded several others, including children, at the high school on Sept. 4, 2024. He was 14 at the time.
In Gray’s appeal request, his attorneys said he “does not intend to derogate from the heinousness of his actions or the irreparable harm he caused to his direct victims, their families, his school, or the community at large.”
Prosecutors opposed Gray’s appeal request. They told the state Supreme Court that Primm reasonably considered Gray’s actions before, during and after the shooting in deciding an appropriate sentence.
The prosecutors argued Gray had lied to the psychologist used by his defense attorneys to show he could be rehabilitated. And prosecutors said Gray had repeatedly boasted about his notoriety from the shooting.
The state Supreme Court’s decision comes as Gray’s father, Colin Gray, seeks a new trial in the associated criminal case against him.
The father is the first parent in the United States to be found guilty of a murder charge in a school mass shooting committed by their child. He’s the first parent in Georgia, and the third nationwide, to be prosecuted in such a case.
Colin Gray was sentenced to 15 years in prison on second-degree murder and other charges, accused of giving his son the gun and ammunition used in the shooting. The father ignored obvious signs his son was troubled and failed to restrict access to guns and associated gear at home, prosecutors said.
In his request for a new trial, Colin Gray’s attorneys argued the evidence does not support the jury’s verdict of guilty on more than two dozen charges, including involuntary manslaughter and cruelty to children.
Prosecutors have yet to officially respond to the father’s request, filed in August, according to court records.
