Jurors found both a school shooter’s father and mother guilty of manslaughter. Here’s what the verdicts mean for parents

Originally Published: 15 MAR 24 01:52 ET Updated: 15 MAR 24 02:12 ET By Dalia Faheid and Eric Levenson, CNN

(CNN) — A jury issued a groundbreaking verdict in Michigan Thursday, finding James Crumbley, whose son killed four students at a Michigan high school in 2021, guilty of four involuntary manslaughter counts in a case that experts say could set an important precedent for the extent to which parents of school shooters can be held responsible.

Just last month, the shooter’s mother, Jennifer Crumbley, was convicted of the same charges. That made her the first parent ever held directly responsible for a mass shooting committed by their child.

“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,’” CNN legal analyst Joey Jackson told CNN’s Erin Burnett on Thursday evening.

In arguments during the weeklong trial, prosecutors said James Crumbley was “grossly negligent.” He bought a SIG Sauer 9mm gun for his son four days before the attack, failed to properly secure it, ignored his son’s spiraling mental health and did not take “reasonable care” to prevent foreseeable danger, prosecutors said.

They also argued that the shooting could have been prevented if James or Jennifer Crumbley had listened to a school counselor’s recommendation and taken their son out of school the day of the shooting, or if they had mentioned to school employees they had just purchased him a gun.

Ethan Crumbley, then 15, used the SIG Sauer 9mm weapon to kill four students and wound six students and a teacher at Oxford High School on November 30, 2021. He was sentenced last year to life in prison without parole.

Jackson said the parents’ verdicts, based on allegations of negligence and foreseeability, will likely be used by prosecutors in other cases.

“If you are a parent, and you’re careless because you get your child a weapon – and not only do you get your child a weapon, but you fail to secure that weapon – and you have or should have some sense of your child’s mental health maladies, and you do nothing to really oversee it, or to act in a way that is appropriate, in a way that protects the public, then you could be accountable,” Jackson said.

The parents’ verdicts garnered national attention as they tested whether and how parents can be held directly accountable for a mass shooting. But verdicts of this nature remain a rarity - parents have in the past faced liability for their child’s actions, such as with neglect or firearms charges.

Prosecuting attorney Karen Mcdonald told jurors that it’s not true 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.” James Crumbley didn’t face “the same normal challenges as parents that we all go through,” McDonald added.

Could the Crumbley verdicts set a new precedent?

Experts say James and Jennifer Crumbley’s guilty verdicts could potentially set an important precedent on who can be held responsible for a mass shooting, aside from the perpetrator – but such cases remain uncommon.

James and Jennifer Crumbley were each convicted of four counts of involuntary manslaughter, a charge that carries a maximum punishment of up to 15 years in prison, which would run concurrently. They are both set to be sentenced on April 9.

There have been several other cases in the US where parents were charged for shootings committed by their children. In Illinois, the father of the July 4 mass shooter was accused of wrongdoing for signing his son’s application for an Illinois Firearm Owners Identification card after he displayed concerning behavior. And in Virginia, the mother of a 6-year-old boy who shot his teacher also faced a number of charges.

Frank Vandervort, clinical professor of law at the University of Michigan Law School, said parents can be held responsible for their children’s actions, such as for truancy. But the level of severity in the case of the Crumbleys is different.

“We do impose on parents certain obligations regarding their children, to say you have a heightened degree of responsibility for what happens when your kids do things. That’s generally in the law,” he said. “The severity of the charges, I think, are what’s unique here.”

Still, Vandervort said he believed the Crumbley cases were so unusual and uncommon that the impact would be limited.

“I don’t anticipate there’s going to be a lot of this kind of thing filed. I think this is a pretty unique case,” he said. “It’s hard to talk about shootings by teenagers as being run of the mill. Unless you’ve got really unusual factual situations, I don’t anticipate a lot of parents getting charged.”

In a written opinion filed last March, a panel of judges for the state’s appellate court acknowledged the possible precedent-setting nature of these cases but called the situation unique and unusual, saying concerns are “significantly diminished” by the fact that Ethan Crumbley’s actions “were reasonably foreseeable, and that is the ultimate test that must be applied.”

Ultimately, Jackson, the CNN legal analyst, said prosecutors can use the verdicts to deter other parents.

“It’s a verdict that nowadays is going to be used as a tool by prosecutors and very effctively I would think in order to deter this type of conduct moving forward,” Jackson said.

This case focused on mental health and gun security

Jennifer Crumbley’s testimony that she wouldn’t have done anything differently was a recurring topic as jurors mulled the verdict, the jury foreperson in the mother’s trial said on NBC’s “Today” show.

“It was repeated a lot in the deliberation room. I think that it was very upsetting to hear. I think that there are many small things that could have been done to prevent this,” she added.

The idea that the shooting was foreseeable was among the prosecution’s main arguments. Ethan Crumbley’s parents could have “prevented this tragedy, that was foreseeable, with just the smallest of efforts,” McDonald, the prosecutor, said.

Pointing to unsettling text messages and journal entries that Ethan had written, prosecutors argued the parents are personally responsible for the deaths of the four students because they got their son a gun, failed to secure it and ignored signs of his deteriorating mental health.

A detective said that a cable lock sold with the SIG Sauer was found still in its plastic packaging, and no other firearm locking mechanisms were found in the home. However, the defense questioned whether a different locking mechanism may have been used to secure the firearm.

Also key in the trial was a meeting between Ethan’s parents and school officials on the morning of the shooting.

On the day of the shooting, Oxford High School counselor Shawn Hopkins testified he recommended the parents take Ethan out of school to get mental health treatment after the school discovered his disturbing writings on a math worksheet. But Jennifer Crumbley said they wouldn’t be able to do so because they had work. James Crumbley did not protest, the counselor testified.

The conviction of the Crumbleys is not the end, McDonaldsaid.

“The three prosecutions and convictions are critical,” McDonald said. “But we will not solve gun violence with these three prosecutions.”

The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2024 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.