A Michigan prosecutor who won convictions for the mother and father of teenage school shooter Ethan Crumbley said Friday that she aims to help her children with other criminal convictions be prosecuted in court. He said the goal is not to make parents question the issue, but to prevent further gun violence.
“We hope this will help prevent further gun violence,” said Oakland County Prosecutor Karen McDonald. “I hope this leads to people being more responsible. I would like to see a situation where a lot of prosecutors are prosecuting people and parents for things that children have done or are doing. not here.”
But the convictions of twins James and Jennifer Crumbley, the first parents to face criminal charges in a child-involved shooting, mean that prosecutors can further punish parents for their children's actions. It created a legal precedent that could lead to many lawsuits.
Echo Yanka, a law professor at the University of Michigan, told NBC News that lawyers are “trained to argue cases based on precedent.” “And we're seeing prosecutors take advantage of this in cases that don't get these kinds of national attention.”
“This incident was particularly egregious and had a unique set of facts,” Yanka said of the 2021 mass shooting that killed four Oxford High School students in a Detroit suburb. “We don't know to what extent the floodgates will open to similar types of prosecutions, but precedent has its own force and law.”
On Thursday, a jury in Pontiac, Michigan, found Crumbley's father, James Crumbley, guilty of manslaughter. His wife, Jennifer Crumbley, was also sentenced in February on the same charges.
The Crumbleys face up to 15 years in prison on each of the four counts of manslaughter. In Michigan, the maximum a judge can impose is a total of 15 years because felony sentences stemming from the same event must be served concurrently. They are scheduled to be sentenced on April 9th.
In both trials, the prosecution made the same argument. Neither James nor Jennifer Crumbley knew that their son Ethan was planning a deadly attack at his high school, but both neglected their legal responsibility to stop it.
Crumbley, who was 15 when he opened fire at Oxford High School, pleaded guilty as an adult and was sentenced in December to life in prison without parole. In the massacre of his classmates, he used a 9mm Sig Sauer, a gift from his father.
Yanka said the ruling was a “warning” to parents like James and Jennifer Crumbley who were unable to keep a deadly weapon out of their son's hands.
Lisa Baratta, a Michigan attorney who represented one of the first couples charged with violating local parental responsibility ordinances in the 1990s, said Crumbley's decision marked the beginning of an onslaught of “parental prosecutions.” I believe it will cause it.
“Going forward, when a juvenile commits a crime, prosecutors will need to consider whether parental negligence played a role,” she said in an email.
In 1996, a couple represented by Baratta's law firm were found guilty of violating a St. Clair Shores city ordinance requiring “reasonable control” of their children. In this case, their 16-year-old son was arrested for robbery, marijuana sales, and other crimes. They had to pay a small fine. Baratta said the conviction was later overturned on appeal.
The convictions of James and Jennifer Crumbley will make it harder for other parents of troubled children to avoid prosecution and parents to monitor their children's behavior. Baratta said extreme caution is needed.
“Parents need to monitor their children's mental health, friend groups, social media presence, etc.,” Baratta wrote. “Responsible parents are already doing this. The fear is that the definition of 'responsibility' will become blurred and innocent parents will be blamed.”
Jeffrey Swartz, a former county judge in Florida and professor at Cooley Law School in Michigan and Florida, said parents may not always know everything that's going on in their children's private lives. It points out that children can be prosecuted for their actions. .
“If I were a parent who owned a firearm or other serious weapon or something that would be considered a deadly weapon, if I owned something like that, I would think twice about everything I have in my home.” said Swartz.
Parents who own firearms in Michigan, where a safe gun storage law went into effect this year, will now be subject to strict standards to ensure the safety of those weapons, Swartz said. .
Although the Crumbleys were charged before the Michigan law was introduced, prosecutors in the Crumbley case demonstrated that parents can also be held responsible for their children's crimes. This could lead to other prosecutors pursuing parents for crimes involving other types of weapons, Swartz said.
“This sets a dangerous precedent if prosecutors try to follow suit, because they don't have to limit themselves to guns,” Swartz said. “Maybe a kid has a hunting knife. Maybe a baseball bat. And maybe it doesn't have to happen in mass murder.”
