After a Michigan jury convicted Jennifer Crumbley of four counts of involuntary manslaughter in connection with her son’s 2021 shooting rampage at Oxford High School, many have asked if a “precedent” has been set for holding parents criminally responsible for their children’s crimes.
It has, and it hasn’t.
A jury’s verdict doesn’t really create any legal precedent. It’s just a finding of fact by the jury.
A jury’s verdict doesn’t really create any legal precedent. It’s just a finding of fact by the jury, which is then applied to the law as told to them by the court. In fact, a verdict may be overturned by an appellate court. In doing so, that court might then create legal precedent by striking down the verdict on an issue of law. But a verdict is just one jury’s take on the facts.
Traditionally, parents have not been automatically deemed liable for the wrongdoing of their children. But there have been times when a court has said they can be. In 1998, for example, a Kansas court concluded that the father of a minor who shot another child could be found liable (in civil court) for negligently entrusting the handgun to his son. (It’s unclear how that case turned out.)
And, although rare, parents have been criminally charged over the crimes of their children, too. But, usually, that’s only happened when evidence shows the parent intended for the child to commit the crimes. As far back as 1869, a Vermont court found a father guilty for his minor daughter’s burglary. But in that case, the father intended for his child’s crime to happen: He gave her the tools and coerced her into committing the crime.
The Crumbley case represents the next stage in the evolution of parental liability: criminal liability for a child’s crimes — crimes that the parent did not intend to happen.
Ethan Crumbley was 15 on Nov. 30, 2021, when he fatally shot Madisyn Baldwin, 17; Tate Myre, 16; Hana St. Juliana, 14; and Justin Shilling, 17, and wounded seven others. He
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