Mother of Michigan school shooter convicted of manslaughter in unprecedented case

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• Geoff Bennett:

  For the first time ever, a parent has been convicted in a mass school shooting.

  Jennifer Crumbley today was found guilty on four counts of involuntary manslaughter. Her teenage son, Ethan, killed four students, Madiyson Baldwin, Tate Myre, Hana St. Juliana, and Justin Shilling, and injured seven others in 2021 at Oxford High School in Michigan.

  The gunman was sentenced to life in prison without parole back in December. His mother now faces up to 60 years in prison and will be sentenced in April.

  For more on the verdict and broader legal questions, we turn to Ekow Yankah, law professor at the University of Michigan.

  Thank you for being back with us.

  And Jennifer Crumbley told jurors that it was her husband's responsibility to keep track of the gun. She said she saw no signs of mental distress in her son. How were the prosecutors able to convince the jury that her behavior crossed the line into recklessness, a conscious disregard, and ultimately involuntary manslaughter?

  Ekow Yankah, University of Michigan Law School: You're right that she in some ways tried to blame what we call the empty chair, that is, point at a defendant who's not around.

  And perhaps that's not surprising. The trial of the Crumbleys was meant to be a joint trial and was separated at the last moment. So, many of us speculated that there had been some legal questions where one of them thought the other could be held more liable or be painted in a worse light.

  Ultimately, though, what Jennifer just couldn't convince the jury of is that, even given the legal principle that you're not responsible for someone else's acts, when she had so many years of notice, so many troubling moments, so many really damning facts, when she walked out of that schoolhouse knowing that her son had a gun, and having had administrators ask her if she wanted to take him home, that she could not have intervened somewhere along the way and saved four lives and saved seven others from injury.

• Geoff Bennett:

  The Crumbleys are the first parents in U.S. history to stand trial for a mass school shooting. James Crumbley, Jennifer's husband, will be tried on the same charges next month. What precedent does her conviction set?

• Ekow Yankah:

  I think we want to look at the specific and the general.

  Certainly, for him, this is a — as big a punch to the gut as you can imagine, obviously not just because his wife has been convicted, but given the closeness of the facts, it's ominous for his legal chances.

  Indeed, I will be interested to see whether or not he still decides to go to trial, if he decides that there are some facts that are sufficiently distinguishing that he doesn't — isn't looking at the same thing, obviously, different case, different jury, but pretty close facts.

  For people more generally though, this case both underscores how really troubling these facts were, but also underscores how really worrying it might be for any set of parents, the parent who's working hard to keep their son out of gang violence or keep their son who's struggling with drugs or alcohol from taking a joyride.

  And how that's going to play out once prosecutors have this new tool is something that I think the defense really hoped that juries would hold onto. And, lastly, I want to point out that there are going to be some people who are convicted that we never hear of, people who, with this precedent facing them, would rather plead to a lesser charge now that prosecutors have this new tool in their arsenal.

• Geoff Bennett:

  Let's hear from Craig Shilling. He's the father of one of the victims, Justin Shilling, and he spoke to reporters after the verdict came in.

  Craig Shilling, Father of Victim: Do your diligence with your child. It is your choice to have a child, and you cannot choose to not take care of your child. You cannot choose to not nurture your child. You cannot choose to take your own interests over your child, especially when it comes to mental health.

• Geoff Bennett:

  So it raises the question of what you just spoke to earlier, what this means for parents. I would, I guess, rephrase the question. What does this mean for gun-owning parents in particular?

• Ekow Yankah:

  Yes, I mean, part of what's going on here is our deep divide in the country about the role guns play in our lives.

  I think there's some set of families that heard, you bought him a gun for an early Christmas gift, especially a young man who's been struggling with mental health issues, and you didn't keep it under lock and key? That for some families is shocking. Indeed, it led to Michigan passing new laws about gun storage.

  For other people, guns are much more part of their lives. Guns are kind of part of the background firmament, and it's, frankly, not unheard of or even unusual to get your kid their first gun.

  I think we as a country are going to have to really wrestle with how ordinary we see guns. And, certainly, parents who now think a gun is just part of their culture and their life have to think about whether or not they have been sufficiently careful about the way their child can access that gun, especially as the child gets older.

• Geoff Bennett:

  And this case also represents an effort to widen the scope of blame and responsibility for mass shootings.

  What other implications might that have? We saw recently in — efforts to file lawsuits against gun manufacturers in this country.

• Ekow Yankah:

  Yes, those have been ongoing lawsuits, although every time there's a really visible event, we wrestle with the question anew.

  I think you're right. As much as we wrestle with these cases in the individual, and though this conviction is unprecedented, there have been a few smaller instances of parents pleading guilty to negligence when they left the gun around. I think you're right that these school shootings are so much a heartbreaking part of our everyday American experience.

  And, frankly, they're going to make prosecutors both angry and perhaps see an opening to either litigate, find somebody who's guilty and you might even think, in the worst cases, for them to make themselves known in their community for career reasons.

• Geoff Bennett:

  Ekow Yankah is a law professor at the University of Michigan.

  Thanks so much for your insights.

• Ekow Yankah:

  Thank you for having me.