A “progressive” Michigan prosecutor who ran on a platform of criminal justice reform has charged Ethan Crumbley’s parents with involuntary manslaughter. It appears the case is primarily based on their failures to (1) lock up the deadly weapon and ensure he had no access and (2) refuse to take immediate action in response to his disturbing and violent drawings, found by a teacher at school, that showed people being shot and included statements such as “the thoughts won’t stop,” “help me,” and “blood everywhere.” The parents had every reason to know he was dangerous, the prosecutor said.
This case was already a terrible tragedy, and law Professor Evan Bernick thinks the precedent of charging the parents will lead to further pain in the future for black and minority families. He wrote this week in the Washington Post [paywall, sorry!] “If the Crumbley prosecution expands law enforcement’s power to charge parents for their children’s crimes, law enforcement officials who share widely held implicit biases against Black children and parents could easily choose to use that power disproportionately against racial minorities.”
Bernick’s op-ed raises some good points. Over the years, I've dealt with many parents who were at wits’ end over the behaviors of their adolescent children that were violent and often the product of severe mental illness and/or autism. I’ve heard stories from mothers who felt they had no control over their teenaged sons who were becoming more deeply involved in gang activity. As Bernick notes, “Racial minorities are more at risk for gang involvement, and gang initiation often involves acts of violence. Prosecutors might target Black parents who fail to identify warning signs in advance and don’t intervene before someone gets hurt or killed.”
The same concern applies to parents whose children struggle with behavioral health issues. In Ethan’s case, we don’t know whether he previously told his parents that he needed help; that he was suffering from intrusive murderous thoughts; or that he planned a massacre. Teens suffering with a new onset of a mental health condition are often reluctant to tell parents or other adults. When the parents thought of Ethan, they may have had in mind the cute kid who made Minecraft and basketball videos on YouTube [channel since deleted], not the one who made disturbing and violent videos.
Many families are poorly equipped to address challenges with children who — for whatever reason — are becoming prone to violent activity. The Surgeon General just issued an advisory warning that youth mental illness has become a major threat to society. You would think that school counselors and administrators would have responded to Ethan’s cries for help before this tragedy by sending him for a crisis mental health assessment. Instead, a prosecutor who promised to “treat children as children” and “expand mental health treatment” took the populist mob way out, charging the parents and in the process separating Ethan from his natural support system.
(You can see more of my thoughts on this in my recent guest appearance on Court TV, here and here).
In other news:
Trans youth in Oregon are suing over their treatment in foster care.
Child protection case managers in Kentucky are getting an immediate 10% raise. With inflation at levels not seen in 40 years and providers forced to raise salaries to keep social workers from fleeing to more profitable work, States and localities are going to have to look at raising reimbursement rates for foster care providers and other organizations that serve child welfare; otherwise, we are going to have a workforce crisis.
Oh, look, the workforce crisis is already here.
Homeland Security is seeking ways to prevent separating families at the border.
Looks like Michigan is reforming its Child Abuse Registry. We learned in Georgia that such registries were more problematic than valuable and got rid of ours.
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Tom, I find the question of whether, when, and how parents should be criminally culpable for their child's acts rather thought provoking. You're right that many parents end up feeling powerless to control their child's behaviors, and your examples of adolescents involved with gangs and children struggling with mental/behavioral health conditions are common foundations for challenging cases. I am curious, however, on your thoughts about the degree to which these concerns about parental prosecution can be mitigated with more specific criminal statutes addressing parental culpability. It seems to me that legislatures can craft specific elements for such statutes that exclude parents working in good faith, though unsuccessfully, to mitigate the risk that their child may act out violently. For instance, a statute could require proof that the parent knew the child was contemplating a violent act and failed to take reasonable action to prevent the event from occurring.
Now, a more specific criminal statute would not fully mitigate the risk of bias and selective prosecution that Professor Bernick discusses. Even beyond questions of parental culpability, prosecutorial discretion always leaves some room for abuse. In fact, it is arguable that a different bias is evident in the prosecutor's decision to prosecute Ethan Crumbley's parents while foregoing prosecution of the schools officials who knew of the same warning signs and similarly failed to search Ethan's belongings or remove him from the classroom the day of the shooting. Her failure to prosecute the school officials, coupled with her comments when announcing the indictments that she intended to send a message to gun owners, suggests that her decision to indict these parents was not based on a purely legal analysis of who was criminally culpable under Michigan law, but at least in part on her views of gun owners a class of individuals. While this is not the same bias Professor Bernick discusses, it seems to generally support his concerns about selective prosecution. But is this not always a potential concern with any criminal statute? I'm curious if you think this really speaks to the merits of pursuing parental criminal culpability, or if it is really just criticism of prosecutorial discretion more broadly.