Michigan School Shooting Case Could Open the Door to More Novel Prosecutions

The unusual step of charging the parents in relation to the recent Michigan school shooting could ultimately embolden prosecutors to criminalize parents when their kids commit a crime and set a kind of precedent that will hit minority parents the hardest, reports Bloomberg Law News. If the case makes it to trial, Oakland County Prosecutor Karen McDonald will have to prove to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt that Jennifer and James Crumbley are guilty of involuntary manslaughter and contributed to the alleged actions of their son Ethan. The defense could argue the school bears responsibility for letting Ethan go back to class and for not checking his backpack, and that the parents were not the primary drivers of the tragedy that occurred. If the prosecution loses, Jeffrey Swartz, a criminal law professor at Western Michigan University Cooley Law School and former Miami-Dade County Court judge and prosecutor, said it could promote a parent’s right to involve their children in gun culture. And whenever the law is being used in a novel way that extends criminal liability, legal scholars say it often disproportionately is used against Black and marginalized people.