Judging Freedom - School shooter Ethan Crumbley's parents are ordered to stand trial for manslaughter_

Episode Date: February 25, 2022

School shooter Ethan Crumbley's parents are ordered to stand trial for manslaughter:See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hello there everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here with Judging Freedom. Today is Friday, February 25th, 2022. It's about 10.15 in the morning on the east coast of the United States. Ethan Crumbly, you may remember that name, the Michigan school shooter, deranged young man who murdered a half dozen of his classmates at a Michigan high school, obviously is incarcerated and he will apparently be tried as an adult for murder. That's not what this judging freedom is about. It's about the trial of his parents for homicide. The parents didn't pull the trigger, but the parents obviously did a less than stellar job, even a terrible job of raising him. When he said he heard voices in his head, they said, suck it up and laughed at him.

And they allowed their son who was manifesting mental problems to have a gun, but they're not murderers. This is the first time that we are aware of that the parents of one of these school shooters are being charged with murder. They could be charged with impairing the welfare of a minor, which is an indictable offense. It's a felony and they could go to jail for that. But to charge them with murder is very dangerous. So let me speak a little bit about this dangerous trend called vicarious liability. Vicarious liability is imposing the liability for the crimes of one person on another when the other either has deeper pockets or is easier to convict. Example, in the Newtown, Connecticut slaughter, a horrible, horrific act if ever there was one, the Connecticut Supreme

Court allowed the parents of the murdered children to sue Remington, the manufacturer of the weapon that the murderer used. Well, Remington is no more liable for murder than Ford is liable for an automobile accident if you're driving your Ford pickup and you crash into another car. But because Ford has deeper pockets, because Remington has deeper pockets, because liberal courts hate gun manufacturers. That liability was allowed. Now we see this creeping into criminal law as well. No good purpose is served in prosecuting somebody for something the court knows they didn't do, couldn't have done, and would never have done had they had the chance to stop it. Prosecute them for what they did.

They impaired the welfare of their child. But they're not murderers. I hope this trend stops because if it doesn't, a lot of innocent people will get ensnared by overzealous. Here's Chris again. By overzealous prosecutors. Chris, this is very serious. Judge Napolitano, judging freedom.