LANSING, Mich. (WLNS) – Court documents reveal that the suspected MSU shooter agreed to a plea deal in a 2019 felony weapons arrest.
That deal included a lesser, misdemeanor charge.
Ingham county circuit court records show that McRae pled guilty to having a loaded gun in a vehicle.
A professor with Western Michigan University’s Cooley Law School says prosecutors have a range of information to take into account when making these deals.
He says each case is different and if other offenses were committed while carrying a concealed gun without a permit, that can mean a harsher sentence.
Plea deals can reduce time and charges to avoid taking up court resources like a jury trial would.
Video from McRae’s 2019 arrest shows he was concealing a gun without a permit, something McRae says he was working to obtain.
Lewis Langham with Cooley Law School says because McRae was not committing any other crime, his attorneys got a lesser charge.
“It’s just him riding around in his car, he has a gun; he shouldn’t have it, it’s a violation of the law. But at the time that he possessed the firearm that he was not supposed to have on his person, meaning he can keep it at his home but not on his person, he wasn’t committing or attempting to commit a crime. And therefore, the plea negations that went all factored all those things,” said Langham.
Lansing police say McRae had little contact with officers before.
After a 2005 larceny investigation, he only had three traffic stops in the years before that concealed weapons arrest.
