Legal Analyst Predicts 'Bad News' for Michigan School Shooter's Father

Legal analyst Joey Jackson told CNN News Central on Wednesday morning that James Crumbley, the father of Michigan school shooter Ethan Crumbley, will face "bad news" in his upcoming trial.

The comments come one day after the shooter's mother, Jennifer Crumbley, was found guilty of four counts of involuntary manslaughter in connection with the school attack in 2021.

Context

On Tuesday, Jennifer Crumbley was convicted of four counts of involuntary manslaughter, one for each student killed in the shooting carried out by her son, Ethan Crumbley, at Oxford High School on November 30, 2021. The jury's decision marked the first time that a parent in the U.S. has been held responsible for a child committing a mass school attack.

Ethan Crumbley, who was 15 years old at the time of the shooting, was convicted and sentenced to life in prison for killing four students and injuring seven other people. He had pleaded guilty to 24 charges, including first-degree premeditated murder and terrorism causing death.

James Crumbley will have a separate trial in March, where he faces the same charges as Jennifer Crumbley.

What We Know

In Wednesday's interview Jackson, a criminal defense attorney, warned that the upcoming trial would spell trouble for James Crumbley as he was responsible for the weapon—a detail Jennifer Crumbley testified in court.

"The father, James Crumbley, who is going on trial, I think it's bad news. Why? Because he's the person who purchased the weapon, he's the person who is supposed to secure the weapon and he's the one that Jennifer Crumbley was blaming on with respect of allowing Ethan to get access to that weapon," Jackson said.

Prosecutors in the case have argued that the Crumbley parents, who bought their son the weapon used in the shooting as a gift, failed to prevent the attack despite school officials warning them earlier in the day that he was showing concerning signs.

Newsweek has reached out to James Crumbley's attorney via email for comment.

Views

Shortly after the initial charges against the Crumbley parents were filed, Michigan attorney Jamie White had told Newsweek that he hoped the charges against the Crumbleys would begin a new standard in which "parents will continue to be held accountable and pay attention to potential tragedies that come from kids having access to firearms."

"Going forward, I think this case will really change the narrative as to how prosecutors are going to charge parents," White said. "There's likely to be extraordinary scrutiny of parents in similar situations, as to whether or not they were reckless in allowing access to weapons, or ignoring extraordinary warning signs."

However, Allison Anderman, senior counsel at Giffords Law Center, previously pointed out to Newsweek that it is difficult to track how often gun owners are prosecuted for allowing their firearms to be used in these shootings, but that the limited data on such penalties "are pursued haphazardly, with substantial variation across different jurisdictions."

What's Next?

While James Crumbley's trial is set for March, Jackson explained on Wednesday how Jennifer Crumbley's guilty verdict will be a problem for James' defense, specifically as his role in making a weapon available to the school shooter may be more heavily scrutinized.

"That's a problem because remember what she was banking on, Jennifer Crumbley, was the blame game. The dad was responsible for the gun, the school should have taken more activities and steps as to alert her to her son's mental health issues..blame, blame, blame. If you're the dad that actually is the responsible for this weapon, I mean you're really going to have to predicate your defense and say you hid that weapon as well as you could, you had no idea."

Update 2/7/24, 11:00 a.m. ET: This story was updated with additional information.