James Crumbley Found Guilty: Impact on School Shooting Accountability

TFD – Delve into the repercussions of James Crumbley’s guilty verdict in the school shooting case, examining its impact on accountability and measures to prevent gun violence.

James Crumbley, whose son killed four students at a Michigan high school in 2021, was found guilty of four counts of involuntary manslaughter by a jury on Thursday. Experts say this could set a significant precedent for the extent to which parents of school shooters can be held accountable.

Jennifer Crumbley, the mother of the gunman, was found guilty of the identical offenses just a month ago. As a result, she became the first parent to be held personally accountable for a child’s involvement in a mass shooting.

CNN legal analyst Joey Jackson told CNN’s Erin Burnett on Thursday night, “We’re living in a new world now and that new world is a prosecutor saying, ‘if we’re not going to have legislation, if we’re not going to have significant protections, we’re going to take it upon ourselves to use the law in a way that gets accountability to everyone and anyone who could have potentially been involved.”

During the trial, which lasted a week, prosecutors claimed that James Crumbley was “grossly negligent.” Prosecutors said that he purchased a SIG Sauer 9mm gun for his son four days prior to the attack, neglected to properly secure it, disregarded his son’s rapidly deteriorating mental condition, and failed to take “reasonable care” to avert foreseeable harm.

Additionally, they contended that if James and Jennifer Crumbley had followed a school counselor’s advice and kept their son home from school on the day of the shooting, or if they had told staff members that their son had recently bought a gun, the shooting might have been avoided.

On November 30, 2021, at Oxford High School, 15-year-old Ethan Crumbley used a SIG Sauer 9mm gun to shoot six pupils, one teacher, and four other students to death. He received a life sentence without the possibility of release last year.

Jackson stated that prosecutors will probably use the parents’ verdicts, which were based on claims of negligence and foreseeability, in other cases.

“As a parent, you may be held responsible if you give your child access to a weapon—and if you fail to secure that weapon as well—and if you know or should know that your child suffers from mental health issues but you take no action to truly monitor it or to act in a way that is appropriate and protects the public,” Jackson stated.

The parent verdicts tested whether and how parents may be held personally responsible for a mass shooting, and they attracted national attention. However, these kinds of rulings are still uncommon because parents have previously been held accountable for their children’s behavior in cases involving neglect or accusations involving firearms.

It is untrue that “finding James Crumbley guilty of gross negligence would result in a criminal charge for every parent who doesn’t know what their child is doing at all times,” prosecuting attorney Karen Mcdonald told the jury. McDonald continued, saying that James Crumbley did not experience “the same normal challenges as parents that we all go through.”

Might the Crumbley rulings establish a novel standard?

Although such cases are still rare, experts believe that James and Jennifer Crumbley’s guilty verdicts may establish a significant precedent about who can be held accountable for a mass shooting in addition to the offender.

Jennifer Crumbley and James were found guilty on four charges of involuntary manslaughter, each of which carries a maximum sentence of fifteen years in jail. The sentences were to run concurrently. On April 9, they are scheduled to be sentenced.

In a number of other US instances, parents were prosecuted for kid shootings that occurred. After exhibiting suspicious behavior, the father of the July 4 mass shooter in Illinois was charged with misconduct for signing his son’s application for an Illinois Firearm Owners Identification card. The mother of a 6-year-old boy who shot his teacher in Virginia was also charged with several offenses.

Clinical professor of law at the University of Michigan Law School Frank Vandervort stated that parents are accountable for their children’s behavior, including truancy. However, the seriousness of the situation with the Crumbleys is different.

We do place certain responsibilities on parents with relation to their kids, saying that you have a greater share of the blame for the actions of your children. That’s usually covered by the law, he said. “I believe what makes this case special is the seriousness of the charges.”

Nevertheless, Vandervort stated he thought the impact of the Crumbley cases would be minimal because they were so unique and uncommon.

“I do not believe that many cases of this nature will be brought. “I believe this to be a rather unusual case,” he remarked. “It’s hard to talk about shootings by teenagers as being run of the mill. I don’t think many parents will be charged unless you have truly extraordinary factual circumstances.

A panel of judges for the state’s appellate court acknowledged in a written opinion filed in March of last year that these cases may set precedent, but they also described the circumstances as unique and unusual, stating that worries are “significantly diminished” by the fact that Ethan Crumbley’s actions “were reasonably foreseeable, and that is the ultimate test that must be applied.”

In the end, Jackson—the legal commentator for CNN—said that the verdicts can be used by the prosecution to discourage other parents.

“This verdict will be utilized as a tool by prosecutors going forward, and I believe it will be very effective in discouraging this kind of behavior,” Jackson stated.

The issues in this case were gun security and mental health.

Jurors deliberated over the verdict, often returning to Jennifer Crumbley’s statement that she wouldn’t have done anything differently, according to the jury foreperson in the mother’s trial, who spoke on NBC’s “Today” show.

In the discussion chamber, it was said several times. I found hearing it to be really distressing. I believe that numerous minor actions could have been taken to avert this,” she continued.

One of the prosecution’s key points was that the shooting was predictable. McDonald, the prosecutor, stated that Ethan Crumbley’s parents could have “prevented this tragedy, that was foreseeable, with just the smallest of efforts.”

Prosecutors said that the parents are directly accountable for the killings of the four children because they gave their son a gun, neglected to secure it, and disregarded warning indications of his declining mental health. They cited disturbing text messages and diary entries that Ethan had written.

There were no other firearm locking mechanisms discovered in the house, according to a detective, and the cable lock that came with the SIG Sauer was discovered still sealed in its plastic wrapping. The defense, however, questioned whether the pistol may have been secured with a different locking mechanism.

A discussion that took place the morning of the shooting between Ethan’s parents and school administrators was also crucial to the trial.

Shawn Hopkins, an Oxford High School counselor, said that on the day of the shooting, the school found Ethan’s unsettling comments on a math homework and advised the parents to take him out of school for mental health therapy. However, Jennifer Crumbley stated that they couldn’t as they had jobs. The counselor stated in court that James Crumbley did not object.

According to McDonald, the Crumbleys’ conviction is not the end.

According to McDonald, “the three prosecutions and convictions are crucial.” “But these three prosecutions won’t end gun violence.”