Reuters allegations of murder in Michigan shooting parents are breaking new ground with Reuters

Author: Brendan Pierson

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Ethan Crumbley’s parents have been charged with felony criminal mischief for firing four high school classmates on Tuesday with a gun, but prosecutors say there could be a strong case. .

Detroit police said Saturday morning that their parents, James and Jennifer Crumbley, had been arrested.

Michigan prosecutor on Friday https://www.reuters.com/world/us/parents-michigan-teen-accused-school-shooting-could-face-own-charges-2021-12-03 accused his son of involuntary manslaughter buying it as a Christmas present and ignoring warning signs as late as the day of the shooting. They said Jennifer Crumbley wrote to her son in a text message, “LOL, I’m not angry with you. You have to learn not to get caught,” after a teacher saw her looking for ammunition on the phone during class.

On the morning of the shooting, a teacher found a drawing by Ethan Crumbley depicting a gun depicting a gun, a bullet and a stream of blood, “Blood everywhere” and “Thoughts will not stop, help me.” After calling the school and showing her the photo, James and Jennifer Crumbley did not take their son home, search his backpack or ask him for a gun, the prosecutor said.

Crumbley’s attorneys, Shannon Smith and Mariell Lehman, denied Friday that their clients were fleeing law enforcement.

Some states have laws that make gun owners responsible for not securing weapons around children, but Michigan does not. This means that prosecutors will rely on traditional criminal law, according to which they must prove that the Crumbleys were not pure negligence, but rather gross negligence or negligence, experts said.

Ethan Crumbley has been accused of being an adult, even though he is under 18 years old.

FIRST CASE AGAINST PARENTS

The case seems to be the first against the parents of a teenage school shooter. Although other parents have been charged with unarmed gun deaths, in these cases many younger children have been involved, experts said.

In one case, in a neighboring Michigan county, the owner of a gun used by a six-year-old child to shoot a classmate did not object to the 2000 unintentional murder. April Zeoli, a professor at the Michigan State School of Criminal Justice. The university said the prosecution offered Crumbley’s closest parity, and a legal precedent for being held liable. In one case, an adult was also targeted for failing to secure a pistol used by a student in a school shooting.

However, Robert Leider, a professor at the Antonin Scalia School of Law at George Mason University, said that this and other cases were different from Crumbley’s because young children could not legally have criminal intent.

“Here’s a teenager who can provoke his criminal intent,” Leider said. “This has a weight in breaking the chain of cause” between Crumbley and the shooting.

Eric Ruben, a professor at Dedman Law School at Southern Methodist University, said whether or not prosecutors are successful depends on the facts and their perspective. He said a case that focuses on what Crumbley did – despite knowing that there was a high risk of buying a gun – is likely to be more powerful than examining what they did not do.

In order to be convicted of failing to do something, the prosecutor said the parents would have to show that they had a duty to the victims.

Michigan law prohibits anyone under the age of 18 from buying or possessing firearms, except in limited cases, such as hunting with a license and a supervised adult. Oakland County Attorney Karen McDonald said at a news conference that the prosecution had “sent a message: that gun owners are responsible.”

Ruben said his parents would probably defend him by arguing that they could not reasonably anticipate that their actions would lead to a shooting, that is, that they could not be held responsible for causing it.

Lawrence Dubin, a law professor at the University of Detroit Mercy, said parents knew their son was in a dangerous state of mind but that if he was given easy access to the gun, he could accept murder charges.

Leider said the events, as prosecutors complained, seemed “horrific.”

“They knew clearly that their child was very worried and it seemed like they were going out of their way to arm him,” he said.