Should parents be held legally liable if their child shoots people? That's the question at the center of a Michigan case straight out of the Law & Order franchise. The case stems from a 2021 mass shooting at Oxford High School, in which Ethan Crumbley killed four people. Crumbley's parents, James and Jennifer, were charged with involuntary manslaughter. "The Crumbleys are the first parents in America to be charged in a mass school shooting," notes the Detroit Free Press.
Now, James and Jennifer Crumbley have appealed to the Michigan Court of Appeals. They suggest that the state has no legal ground on which to bring such charges and is trying to change gun policy through criminal charges rather than through legislation.
