After the heavily publicized conviction of the mother of a teenager who killed four students and injured seven more people in a November 2021 school shooting, the shooter’s father will go on trial on March 5. 

As part of a rare legal strategy to hold the perpetrator’s parents directly responsible, prosecutors are accusing the parents of “gross negligence” for enabling their troubled son to access a gun — despite him displaying distressing mental health warning signs for months. James Crumbley faces the same four charges for involuntary manslaughter that his wife, Jennifer Crumbley, was found guilty of early in February when she became the first parent to be criminally convicted for a child’s mass shooting. 

Their son, Ethan Crumbley, pleaded guilty and was sentenced in December to life without parole after committing the shooting at an Oxford, Michigan, high school when he was 15 years old. Jennifer’s first-of-its-kind trial stirred public outrage as evidence emerged that she ignored her son’s pleas for mental help, appearing instead to be caught up in her love of horse riding and an extramarital affair. 

Mr. Crumbley’s trial is expected to garner further national attention as it raises questions about youth mental health, gun safety and storage, and parental responsibility. A majority of school shooters — 76 percent — acquire guns from the home of a parent or close relative, and half of the time the gun is “readily accessible” or not safely secured, a Secret Service analysis found. 

The conviction of Jennifer Crumbley and the upcoming trial of her husband have put attention on the extent parents can be held criminally responsible for their children’s actions. Some legal scholars have said it could open the door to future cases where anti-gun prosecutors could bring legal action against parents in incidents beyond mass shootings — or even lead to parents being held responsible for non-gun-related crimes.

Yet, a clinical professor of law at the University of Michigan Law School, Frank Vandervort, tells the Sun that while the trial is “unusual,” it likely won’t set a “concerning precedent” that other parents will be charged in a similar manner.

“I think the facts of this particular case are so unusual that it would be unlikely that a similar situation will reoccur,” Mr. Vandervort says. “I also think that because the prosecutor has to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the father’s actions were a direct cause of the school shooting this is a difficult case to prove given the intervening actions of an adolescent whom the prosecution charged as an adult.”

Parental responsibility laws have existed in America for years, he adds, including a wave of laws in the 1980s and 1990s aimed at reducing juvenile crime.

“These have typically been misdemeanors or low-level felonies,” Mr. Vandervort notes. “What is unique about the Crumbley case is that the parents were charged with involuntary manslaughter, a form of homicide, that is, a more substantive crime, and a very serious one that carries the potential of a 15-year prison sentence.” 

Because society places different roles on mothers and fathers, he adds, it will be of interest to see how those issues play out in Mr. Crumbley’s trial. 

“We excuse a lot of actions by fathers that would get a mother resoundingly condemned,” he says, adding that society sees women as “primarily responsible for rearing children.”

Jennifer is scheduled to be sentenced in April. It was Mr. Crumbley who purchased the gun used in the shooting.

“Interestingly, the foreperson of the mother’s jury said that she was the last adult with an opportunity to safely store the gun and interrupt the shooting, and Ms. Crumbly testified that the father was primarily responsible for the gun,” Mr. Vandervort adds.

Court documents from Michigan’s Court of Appeals indicate that Jennifer, starting in early 2021, received texts from her son indicating that he was experiencing hallucinations and paranoia. Ethan also texted a friend about wanting a gun and joking about shooting up a school. In a journal Ethan kept, he referenced plans to “cause the biggest school shooting in Michigan’s history.” 

He wrote that he would kill everyone he saw, describing that his first victim would be a “pretty girl with a future so she can suffer like me,” accompanied with a drawing of a girl being shot in the head. Ethan wrote that his parents wouldn’t let him get a therapist: “I have zero help for my mental problems and it’s causing me to shoot up the f—-ing school.”

Mr. Crumbley bought a handgun in November 2021, and Jennifer took Ethan to a shooting range the next day. Multiple times, Ethan posted about the firearm on his Instagram account, calling it his gun. Jennifer also posted about the gun on Facebook, calling it “his new X-mas present.” 

Mere days after the gun purchase, Ethan took it to school, and that morning, he was caught watching a shooting video and drawing gun-related images on his math worksheet, court documents show. His teachers reported it to the school counselor, who called his parents in and recommended they pull Ethan out of school that day and seek immediate medical attention.

The parents did not listen to the counselor and kept him in school. Hours later, Ethan pulled the gun from his backpack and killed four students. He injured six more students and a teacher. 

“Despite their knowledge of all of these circumstances, when given the option to help [Ethan] and take him out of school, defendants did nothing,” Michigan’s Court of Appeals noted when it declared there was enough evidence against the parents for them to be tried in court. 

The parents were found hiding at Detroit in December 2021 and arrested following a manhunt by authorities, as U.S. Marshals offered rewards of up to $10,000 for information about Jennifer and Mr. Crumbley. As Mr. Crumbley’s trial approaches next week, his attorneys unsuccessfully tried to change his trial location after they argued public opinion had turned against him and he would be unable to get a fair trial at Oakland County.