Photo by Thomas Def on Unsplash
By Mark Mamerow
It’s just common sense, isn’t it? James and Jennifer Crumbley behaved irresponsibly, and now they’re being held accountable for it in court. The Crumbleys are the parents of the 15-year-old who shot up a suburban Michigan high school in America’s latest numbingly familiar school massacre. But in the case of Michigan vs. Crumbley parents, be careful if you plan to bring common sense to the courtroom.
The facts of the case relate a shocking story of parental recklessness and indifference. The parents bought a gun for their 15-year-old son Ethan. They did not lock it up to keep it away from their troubled son. When Ethan was caught in class shopping for ammunition, his mother took no action except to joke with him that he shouldn’t get caught. When confronted with a chilling, violent note written by their son, the Crumbleys made no effort to remove their son from school, or to search his belongings for the gun.
The Oakland County DA has responded to the Crumbleys’ irresponsibility with actual criminal charges—one count of involuntary manslaughter for each of their son’s victims.
In hindsight, it’s clear that Ethan should have been removed from school as soon as the note was found. But, in a school conference called on the morning that the note was found, the Crumbley parents insisted that Ethan remain in the building. So the school counselors recommended no action and Ethan was sent back to class. That same afternoon, the boy took the gun out of his backpack and opened fire, shooting at least 30 rounds.
The school conference will be the heart of the Crumbleys’ defense. Obviously, the parents knew that Ethan had access to a gun. They had bought it for him! But at the conference, the parents were NOT aware that Ethan was actually carrying the gun. This lack of knowledge is the key to the case.
The DA’s case is built around the parents’ responsibility to protect the community from their son. Since they knew of the possibility that Ethan was carrying the weapon, the DA reasons, they should have removed him from school, or, at a minimum, initiated a search of his backpack.
The Crumbleys’ defense strategy, in contrast, will be to keep the focus on the narrow particulars (we didn’t know he had the gun), while ignoring the larger reality (that they acted incredibly irresponsibly in multiple ways). The Crumbleys should give serious consideration to hiring Mark Richards, the defense lawyer in the analogous Kyle Rittenhouse shooting case.
To anybody who steps back and looks at the larger context, both Rittenhouse and the Crumbley parents held a match above a leaking gas can. They are responsible for the explosions that inevitably followed. But when we focus on the narrow details of the crime, these defendants start to get some wiggle room.
In the Rittenhouse case, defense attorney Richards ignored and minimized the big picture. Sure, Kyle Rittenhouse brought a gun to a riot. But he was there only to protect people and property! Ignore that this was an obvious fantasy. Absurd as this argument was, it was all preliminary to the winning strategy, brilliantly executed, where the defense focused like a laser beam on the moments before the shootings. Kyle was physically attacked! Didn’t he have a right to defend himself? The jury bought it and acquitted him on all counts.
The Crumbley parents will take the same tack. They did nothing technically illegal. And they had no idea that Ethan was carrying a gun. How can they be blamed for his murderous actions? Ignore the week leading up to the crime and the actions that the Crumbleys took to enable their son. Those actions well all legal, by the way. And they aren’t relevant. The jury will be asked to focus only on the crime itself. Depending upon the skill of the defense team, and the language of the manslaughter statute in Michigan, it just well may work.
The Crumbleys are currently sitting in jail under a half million bond each, but if a clever defense attorney can convince a jury to ignore the big picture, they will be walking free by this time next year. The only consolation is that civil lawsuits–soon to be filed by the victims’ families–don’t require plaintiffs to meet as high or as exacting a standard to get at least some measure of justice. The Crumbleys’ insurance company will be putting aside settlement reserves right now–-IF it looks at the big picture.
I’d sure like to know the contents of Ethan’s “note”. That would seem critical to the case against the Crumbleys. It also could be damning to the school administrators who allowed him to stay in school. You would think it would be entered into evidence by either the prosecution or defense during the trial. If someone has knowledge of its contents, please post. Thanks in advance.