Jennifer Crumbley verdict: Could parents be charged for their child's crime going forward?

TEXAS - The conviction of Jennifer Crumbley in Michigan marks the first time the parent of a school shooter has been found criminally liable for what their child did. She was found guilty of four counts of involuntary manslaughter.

Her son, Ethan, killed four students at Oxford High School in 2021. He is currently serving a life sentence. 

Prosecutors argued Crumbley ignored her son's mental health issues even though his school reached out to her. Both parents were called to school on the day of the shooting because of something disturbing Ethan drew, but they didn't take him out of class. Hours later, their son murdered four classmates. Ethan's parents are accused of buying him the gun he used. 

Local attorneys Charlie Baird and Gene Anthes, who are unaffiliated with the case, provided their analysis. 

"It's a very interesting verdict because it's a unique legal theory. Generally, a person cannot be tried for a crime committed by somebody else unless they are directly responsible for the crime," Baird said. "It is something that could not happen under Texas law, as it currently states, because there is no liability for a parent on the conduct of their child as it relates to a criminal matter...there is a legal theory in Michigan that permits this type of prosecution to go forward."

If a case like this happened in Texas, it likely wouldn't play out the same way. While Baird says there's no liability for conduct, there are consequences for allowing a minor to access a firearm.

"It's actually a class A misdemeanor for a parent to make a firearm available to a minor, and it be discharged. Michigan does not have anything like that on the books. It's kind of interesting that Michigan doesn't have those laws. They've pigeonholed their manslaughter offense into this, that the parents were reckless in making that firearm available to their child, as well as reckless in not getting help for the child," Anthes said. "If you act recklessly and kill somebody, that's manslaughter. If you act with gross criminal negligence, it's a little bit lower than recklessness. That's where you get into the criminally negligent homicide, which is kind of what it seems like the prosecutors in Michigan were going for in this particular offense against a mom. That is, she was criminally negligent in both failing to secure the gun and failing to provide mental health services for her son. I think that Texas has a statute making it a specific misdemeanor offense for a minor to have access to a gun and discharging it, hurt somebody. I think prosecutors would have trouble actually going forward on a manslaughter charge."

No matter what state you're in, parents could always be sued civilly. 

Baird says if Crumbley had taken different steps, the verdict might have been different.

"Clearly, the jury thought that she had come up short in taking corrective actions or preventative measures to see that this did not occur," Baird said.

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Anthes says if Crumbley had taken those measures, there might not have been a trial at all.

"If you took all those efforts to secure the gun and then also to get her child mental health help, I don't think the prosecutors would have been able to cross that hurdle to at least show probable cause that an offense was committed to then get you to a trial," he said.

Going forward, experts say this case could have an impact on similar situations. 

"I would think that it will in fact have a ripple effect, certainly other cases in Michigan, if there's another tragedy like another school shooting, it could even be employed there. I would imagine that other states will go back, prosecutors will examine, what the law that's on the books, perhaps even the common law, go way back and see if there's some type of legal theory that an individual's parents could be prosecuted if that child commits a school shooting or some other type of tragic offense," Baird said.

Anthes says he hopes the case is a reminder for parents to pay closer attention to their children. 

"I think people are wanting to see parents be more proactive, more accountability for some of these mass shootings that we're seeing in school," he said. "There are two aspects there that I hope it has an impact on, the mental health aspect of it and the firearm aspect of it." 

Ethan's father, James Crumbley, was charged with the same four counts of manslaughter. His trial begins in March. Jennifer Crumbley will be sentenced in April.