A groundbreaking case in Michigan is nearing a close as the parents of a Michigan school shooter face sentencing Tuesday in suburban Detroit.

The parents of a Michigan school shooter are asking a judge to keep them out of prison as they face sentencing for their role in an attack that killed four students in 2021.

Jennifer and James Crumbley are scheduled to appear in court Tuesday for the close of a pioneering case: They are the first parents convicted in a U.S. mass school shooting.

The Crumbleys did not know their son, Ethan Crumbley, was planning the shooting at Oxford High School. But prosecutors said the parents failed to safely store a gun and could have prevented the shooting by removing the 15-year-old from school when confronted with his dark drawing that day.

Prosecutors are seeking at least 10 years in prison for involuntary manslaughter.

  • Copernican@lemmy.world
    0·
    9 months ago

    Then how do you charge the kid as an adult? If you treat the kid as a child it makes sense to me to look at the parents for negligence. But if you think the kid is legally responsible to be tried as an adult, how do the prosecutors also go after the parents?

    • audalics@lemmy.world
      0·
      9 months ago

      Multiple adults are tried and convicted for different roles in the same crimes all the time.

      • Copernican@lemmy.world
        0·
        9 months ago

        Yeah, but it’s weird when you 2 adults are tried for basically parental negligence of a minor, but that minor was tried as an adult. So if the minor is being tried as an adult, how can the parents be tried for not taking care of their minor? If the kid was tried as a kid this would make more sense to me.

        • Liz@midwest.socialEnglish
          0·
          9 months ago

          They were charged with involuntary manslaughter. I would assume similar charges would be brought if similar actions happened between roommates.

          Mass shooter: voices in my head are telling me to kill people.

          Roommate: I’m gonna just ignore that. Hey, you wanna learn how to shoot? Let’s buy you a gun!

        • monsterlynn@kbin.social
          0·
          9 months ago

          Personally I think he’s too young to be tried as an adult and it’s obvious that his negligent parents both ignored his cries for help AND encouraged him to use weapons that the law prohibits minors from owning.

          But on the other hand, they weren’t the ones that shot up the school, and he does pose a threat to society. If anything this case illustrates how messed up and convoluted the juvenile justice system is.

          • ShepherdPie@midwest.social
            0·
            9 months ago

            Not just the juvenile system but the system as a whole. A popular example is the family from the Making A Murderer documentary. The uncle and nephew were borh tried and convicted (separately) of the same murder but in each trial, the prosecutor gave wildly different descriptions of how the murder occurred so that it would better fit the forced, false confession from the nephew in his case and the evidence found at the scene in the other.

          • Copernican@lemmy.world
            0·
            9 months ago

            I think these are the types of cases that make liberal leaning folks take a really ironic position. We talk about ending the prison industrial complex, focusing on rehabilitation, etc… But school shooting that in some way is predicated on right wing 2nd amendement rights, let’s lock up as many people as we can for as long as we can, and screw juvenile courts for juveniles while we’re at it.

            • deft@lemmy.wtf
              0·
              9 months ago

              i don’t see how that is an ironic or contradictory stance?

              people who are a threat to themselves or society need to be locked up, monitored and rehabilitated.

              simultaneously we need to repair the way we monitor and rehabilitate people because there is a need to do that in society.

            • jkrtn@lemmy.ml
              0·
              9 months ago

              Why, what is the liberal option for dealing with a mass murderer in the system that we currently have?

        • zaph@sh.itjust.works
          0·
          9 months ago

          Personally I’m not a big fan of children being tried as adults in general but that’s not really relevant I just don’t want it to seem like I’m defending that. Being tried as an adult doesn’t mean “this child has the mental capacity of an adult and should be treated as such,” it’s about the crimes he committed. If he was emancipated I could see your argument being a defense for the parents but he wasn’t.

          • ShepherdPie@midwest.social
            0·
            9 months ago

            Why would the crime committed have any bearing on whether the defendant should be tried as a minor or adult? If that were the case, the opposite should be possible too, like an adult that commits a crime so dumb or so poorly that they should be tried as a juvenile.

            The distinction is (or should be) about the mental capacity of the perpetrator. Prosecutors just love to do it so they appear to be “tough on crime” for the next election.

            • zaph@sh.itjust.works
              0·
              9 months ago

              Why would the crime committed have any bearing on whether the defendant should be tried as a minor or adult?

              Because our legal system is set up to stroke justice boners and not to rehabilitate criminals.

              If that were the case, the opposite should be possible too, like an adult that commits a crime so dumb or so poorly that they should be tried as a juvenile.

              That’d be an insanity plea.

              The distinction is (or should be) about the mental capacity of the perpetrator. Prosecutors just love to do it so they appear to be “tough on crime” for the next election.

              I wholeheartedly agree.