« Oklahoma completes execution for double murder committed 20+ years ago | Main | "Assessing the Early Influence of the Model Penal Code’s Revised Sentencing Provisions" »
April 4, 2024
Prosecutors seek (above-guideline) sentences of at least 10 years for Crumbley parents after state manslaughter convictions
As discussed in this CNN piece, "Michigan prosecutors are asking a judge to sentence the parents of school shooter Ethan Crumbley to at least 10 years in prison, alleging they have both showed a 'chilling lack of remorse' after they were convicted for involuntary manslaughter." Here is more:
In two separate sentencing memorandums dated April 3, Oakland County prosecutors asked the judge to sentence each parent to 10 to 15 years in state prison. The prosecutors allege Crumbley’s father has repeatedly threatened Prosecuting Attorney Karen McDonald and has said “there will be retribution,” while the mother has asked to serve her sentence under house arrest in her defense attorney’s home.
James and Jennifer Crumbley were both found guilty on four counts of involuntary manslaughter in two separate trials this year for their roles in their son’s mass shooting at Oxford High School on November 30, 2021. Jurors found they were both grossly negligent in allowing their teenage son to have a gun and ignoring signs of his spiraling mental health. Ethan, who was 15 at the time, killed four classmates – Madisyn Baldwin, 17; Tate Myre, 16; Hana St. Juliana, 14; and Justin Shilling, 17 – and injured seven other people.
His parents have been behind bars since they were arrested in December 2021 at a Detroit warehouse after leading authorities on a manhunt following the school shooting. They are scheduled to be sentenced on Tuesday. Shannon Smith, Jennifer Crumbley’s defense attorney, did not comment when reached by CNN. CNN also reached out to an attorney for James Crumbley but has not heard back. Defense pre-sentencing submissions have not yet been filed on the public dockets.
In a rare move, prosecutors released excerpts of the pre-sentencing investigation reports publicly, and included statements from both defendants written after jurors found them culpable for the killings. In the prosecution’s sentencing memorandum for James Crumbley, prosecutors noted “his jail calls show a total lack of remorse, he blames everyone but himself, and he threatened the elected Prosecutor.” They also note the father has repeatedly said he is being persecuted and has referred to himself as a “martyr.”...
In the sentencing memorandum for Jennifer Crumbley, prosecutors pointed to statements she made on the stand during her trial, where she testified, “I’ve asked myself if I would have done anything differently, and I wouldn’t have.”...
In her pre-sentence report, Jennifer Crumbley acknowledged she testified she wouldn’t have done anything different but said “that is true without the benefit of hindsight that I have now.”...
Jennifer Crumbley asked that she be placed under house arrest in her defense attorney’s home, according to prosecutors. Smith, her attorney, notified the court that Crumbley could stay in her guest house for the duration of her sentence, according to the memorandum. “Such a proposed sentence is a slap in the face to the severity of tragedy caused by defendant’s gross negligence, the victims and their families, and the applicable law that is premised on the concept of proportionate sentencing.”
Prior related post:
April 4, 2024 at 05:36 PM | Permalink
Comments
https://www.kgw.com/article/news/education/portland-public-schools-after-school-program-sued-family-3rd-grader-sexual-assault-rape/283-1ae208c5-1920-4df4-b0d4-4288bdc5a32e
So Doug, was it constitutional for the school to punish the girl for slapping the kid that tried to kiss her? Personally, I'd prosecute the decisionmakers at the school.
Posted by: federalist | Apr 5, 2024 9:35:41 AM
When schools and kids are involved, federalist, these issues get even more legally complicated. But I thought our prior debate was over your assertion (suggestion?) that everyone has a federal constitutional right to respond to unwanted advances with (deadly?) force. I was asking you (among other follow-up questions) where in the TEXT of Constitution that you think such right was located. I still do not think you have provided an answer to that basic first question. Can you?
Posted by: Doug B | Apr 5, 2024 9:58:46 AM
Where in the text is the right to direct the upbringing of one's children? If you are saying that there is no federal constitutional right to self-defense, that means that the state can take it away.
Heller. If the idea that the Second Amendment protects the right to self-defense, then that right doesn't come from state statutes. So here's a hypo: Criminal breaks into home, holds knife to child's throat. Homeowner blows burglar away. Under the federal constitution, does the state have the power to prosecute him (assuming away state self-defense laws).
A government official punished a kid for fending off an unwanted kiss. Don't see how that's legal.
Posted by: federalist | Apr 5, 2024 10:16:17 AM
I'm shocked by what the Crumbleys did. I get it that they found themselves in a terrible situation with their screwed-up child. But that does not give them the right to gamble with other peoples' lives. I think 10 years would make sense.
Posted by: William Jockusch | Apr 5, 2024 11:23:00 AM
The right to child rearing has generally been tethered to (substantive) Due Process (which the Dobbs opinion throws shade on). That's what I am seeking to hear from you: is this a substantive due process claim you are asserting? Fine if it is, but it would be an assertion that Dobbs is suspect for throwing shade on that approach to finding constitutional rights. (Also, philosopher JJT and others have argued that abortion could be defended as a form of self defense.) I will address your hypo in a follow-up post when I have more time.
Posted by: Doug B | Apr 5, 2024 11:46:08 AM
I don't think that labels matter. There is no question that the Constitution protects the right to raise one's children and self-defense. Heller's rationale doesn't make sense without it.
Posted by: federalist | Apr 5, 2024 12:20:19 PM
"Labels don't matter ... if I feel it's a constitutional right, that's what matters," says federalist. What a non-lawyerly statement --- do you often claim "labels don't matter" in your legal work? Do you have a convenient cite for "ignore text, feelings matter" that we can all use in court and other legal work?
Of course, Heller is based on the text of the Second Amendment, and rulings on that text (now informed by originalism) matters -- eg, I've not seen any serious claims the 2d A limits the reach of SD or extends it. Likewise, I am not aware persons claiming a constitutional right to repeatedly abuse their child as part of childrearing --- nor do child-abusing parents claim such consitutional right as a defense to state criminal criminal charges. Whatever vague right to child rearing one might see in the Constitution, arguably based in contestable claims of substantive due process, that's so very different than asserting the Constitution protects a right to kill another person on the basis of mistaken beliefs as to a threat posed (which is the classic common-law SD formula).
We are back, yet again, to federalist expressing feelings while disregarding and showing disdain for constitutional text, doctrines and principles. Your feelings about the Constitution are interesting, federalist, but are no more legally significant than your feelings about, say, Taylor Swift lyrics.
Posted by: Doug B | Apr 5, 2024 1:59:56 PM
And on your hypo, federlist, states prosecute killers all the time and put the onus on defendants to raise and asssert whatever defenses --- SD, necessity, duress, insanity --- that the state provides as a matter of statutory or common law. I am not aware of any SCOTUS rulings that any of these defenses must be allowed as a matter of substantive constitutional law. Ohio used to put the burden on defendants to prove SD, and SCOTUS upheld that process against a due process challenge. Kansas more recently eliminated the traditional insanity defense, and SCOTUS upheld that substantive choice against a due process challenge. (And Dobbs says that claimed substantive due process rights about the termination of life or potential life are different in kind from other rights claimed to be protected by substantive due process.)
Of course, states have never entirely eliminated self-defense rights, so SCOTUS has never had to directly consider whether and how SD rights are constitutionally protected. But states have restricted SD rights in all sorts of ways (eg, with retreat duties and fault limits), and those restrictions have never produced federal constitutional litigation. That certainly suggests that the constitutional status and reach of SD rights are highly contestable if not entirely non-existant. Except in your feelings, it seems.
Posted by: Doug B | Apr 5, 2024 2:37:07 PM
The problem, with all due respects, with saying that the right to self-defense is constitutionally protected is that you then have to define what that constitutional right is. I'm licensed in several different states and each has a different law on self-defense. Is stand your ground -- the lack of a duty to retreat -- which is in several state's statutes part of that constitutional right. (I would argue that it is not as the duty to retreat is part of common law.) What about the castle doctrine (that no additional showing of threat of serious physical injury is required before deadly force can be used to defend the home) and is the castle doctrine limited to the home (in the state where I practice it also applies to vehicles)?
That was always the legal problem with the right to privacy that caused those on the right to label efforts to protect that right as judicial activism. There is some constitutional language protecting some aspects of privacy, but -- whether placed in the due process clause (as in Roe) or in the Ninth Amendment (as in Griswold) the limits of that right were vague and undefined with limited historical support for any proposed definition of the right.
Posted by: tmm | Apr 5, 2024 2:54:23 PM
Doug, so your position is that the state could subject someone shooting a person in his home who is threatening his child to a criminal prosecution and LWOP. Nope.
SD constitutional right would be coterminous with common law right when Constitution was ratified.
Posted by: federalist | Apr 5, 2024 4:03:43 PM
My labels point is that you don't have to say substantive due process. Obviously.
Posted by: federalist | Apr 5, 2024 4:04:52 PM
tmm: you have stated my core point better and with fewer words that I have in my efforts to unpack federalist's feelings. There simply is no clear doctrinal grounding for constitutionalizing this common-law defense --- any more than constitutionalizing other common law defenses like necessity and duress and insanity --- so any assertion that this is a constitutional right needs to work through the implications of this potential form of, as you put it, "judicial activism."
federalist: a serious lawyer cannot just say "there is a constituional right" without referencing some actual text in the Constitution that can then serve as some basis for assessing the metes and bounds of that right. (It would be like a lawyer vaguely saying "there's some new law in Ohio" making some drugs legal without referencing a specific statute to support the claim. If one is talking about cannabis being legal in Ohio, that would now be accurate under ORC 3780.36; one would not be accurate if talking about LSD thanks to ORC 2925.11. This is how proper legal claims generally function.)
Since you now add LWOP to your hypo, federalist, and also seem to eschew substantive due process as the basis for your constitutional assertion, I wonder if you are (poorly) suggesting the Eighth Amendment serves to tether your vague claims of a constitutional SD right. Is that the heart of your claim, namely that the Cruel and Unusual Punishment Clause would preclude a state from the prosecution with LWOP in the mix as you posit?
It is not crazy to claim some uses of force are so mitigated that an extreme punishment would not be constitutional under the Eighth Amendment. After all, SCOTUS has said in many cases that the death penalty and LWOP are unconstitutional punishments in some settings. The PA Supreme Court is now considering whether the 8A precludes madantory LWOP for mitigated forms of felony murder; perhaps your SD assertions provide support for that kind of constitutional limit on LWOP. And that's why I keep pressing you on the basis for your constitutional assertions --- stating your constitutional claims in 8A terms would be quite different (and have different implications) than stating your claim in 2A or 5A terms. Problematically, you are unable to state your claim in connection with any constitutional text at all --- or to cite to any legal authority or precedent supporting your claim --- and that's why it seems like a suspect claim from the get-go (at least given modern textualist approaches to constitutional interpretation).
Meanwhile, people get prosecuted all the time for shooting intruders, and here are a few of many stories to that end from a quick google search:
https://www.daytondailynews.com/local/dayton-mans-murder-conviction-shows-limits-of-ohio-self-defense-laws/3DRCKIVNLVDJ3EEHCEGW6IGO4E/
https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/18/us/stand-your-ground-laws-explainer/index.html
https://abc7amarillo.com/news/local/woman-charged-with-murder-after-shooting-alleged-intruder-alexandra-yvette-romero-700-block-dawn-loop-clovis-new-mexico-ex-boyfriend-javier-jimenez-inconsistencies
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/self-defense-washington-man-faces-possible-murder-charge-shooting-showering-n742646
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/minnesota-homeowner-byron-smith-convicted-premeditated-murder-n93166
The particular facts of these intruder cases are not at issue, but rather whether in these cases any asserted state claim of SD was actually a federal constitutional defense. I am not aware in these cases --- or in any of tens of thousands of other contested state SD cases --- that the defense has asserted that federal constitutional rights define/impact the metes and bounds of the state SD right. Your contention suggests tens of thousands of SD defendants have received ineffective assistance (that's the 6A) because their lawyers failed to argue they had a federal right that, according to your claim, there is "no question that the Constitution protects." Why don't we see any defense attorneys advance federal constitutional SD claims (in state court or in federal habeas) if this is so clear a matter of federal constitutional law? (The defense failing would be especially problematic for debated limits on self defense like the duty to retreat, which is sometimes even applied in the home under some modern statutes.)
I get that you FEEL this is a matter of constitutonal right, federalist. But, yet again, you cannot provide any kind of lawyerly account (or constitutional text or legal authority) that supports your feelings.
Posted by: Doug B | Apr 5, 2024 5:37:27 PM
Given that Heller says that the Second Amendment protects armed self-defense rights, you'd have to argue that Heller only protects SD rights to the extent they are established by the state. Odd result there. In any event, if you really think that the government can constitutionally prosecute on the facts I have described, just say so.
The Minnesota case is an easy one. Lying in wait has NEVER been allowed. The Washington case isn't really that close, is it? Neither is the Ohio case.
Every state has SD statutes, so the defense attorneys wouldn't generally need to rely on the constitution. Had Rittenhouse been convicted, the appellate case would have been fascinating.
Posted by: federalist | Apr 8, 2024 11:46:03 AM
I do believe, federalist, that Heller only protects SD rights to the extent they are established by the state because I have not seen any cases in which a defendant argued t Heller provided federal SD constitutinal rights beyond what is established by the state. Can you cite any examples in which defendants argue, or a courts take seriously, the notion that Heller provides a federal SD constitutional right to use deadly force when state SD law clearly would not permit that use of force?
Heller's significance is that it protects a right to "keep and bear arms" far beyond common-law SD rights even though respect for common law SD rights is mentioned in Heller. But teenagers and persons with criminal records and the mentally ill and drug users and non-citizens many others clearly have common law SD rights, even though courts have said they do not have 2A rights. And I have not seen arguments that persons never have a duty to retreat in any setting before using deadly force because the 2A create a greater right to stand my ground regardless of state law. Is that what you are claiming Heller protects as a matter of federal constitutional law? Can you reference a case in which an argument like that has been made and taken seriously?
At issue here, federalist, is not whether defense attorneys would "GENERALLY need to rely on the constitution." It is whether defense attorneys EVER CAN/DO and WHAT PROVISION they would claim provides some kind of roving federal SD constitutinal rights. I keep asking you over and over and over again (a) what provision of the constitution provides these rights, and (b) whether you can provide a single citation to a single case supporting the notion that there are federal SD constitutinal rights. You keep clowning yourself by failing to provide any answer to these clear questions, though it is a useful reminder that many of your claims about law are really just your statement of your feelings with no legal substance behind it.
Posted by: Doug B | Apr 8, 2024 12:26:42 PM
I suspect that, if we continue to have BS prosecutions like Rittenhouse's, you'll see the argument made. I don't think the fact that some people forfeit the right to be armed undercuts the idea that the SD right Heller mentions encompasses the right to self-defense. And I notice how you don't answer my hypo.
Posted by: federalist | Apr 8, 2024 12:36:51 PM
Of course, if the state doesn't allow a person to defend themselves, then at least in terms of defense against violence likely to cause death, the state has violated the Due Process Clause, as it is taking life without due process of law.
Posted by: federalist | Apr 8, 2024 12:51:52 PM
I am so confused, federalist. Are you saying the 5A Due Process Clause gives someone the right to take any attacker's life (or gives his family a right to sue a private party if he is killed buy does not use defensive force)? What state action are you talking about? Are you saying the 2A defines federal SD rights, but those rights can/are fully denied to teenagers and non-citizens and many others based on state/federal statute? None of this makes any legal sense whatsoever nor does anything you say have any clear connection to any legal doctrine, federalist, which is why real lawyers in real cases do not make these claims and why I surmise that your views are entirely based on your feelings rather than any actual laws or real legal doctines.
And I did answer your hypo: a state can and does adjudicate criminal defenses according it its own state criminal defense doctrines, and I am not aware of any clear doctrinal grounding for constitutionalizing this common-law defense --- any more than for constitutionalizing other common law defenses like necessity and duress and insanity and defense of property. (It is also amusing and telling that your hypo is not actually a self defense hypo, but a defense of others hypo. Your feelings are so sloppy here, it seems you reach for hypos that concern still other issues.)
I also said I could see, via your curious LWOP reference, that your feelings might be heading toward a viable Eighth Amendment claim. I do think there are constitutional limits, based on the Eighth Amendment, on whether LWOP can be given to mitigated killers. Indeed, I support efforts to limit constitutionally the use of LWOP in felony murder and other cases in which the nature and circumstances of the killing are mitigated. I do not think you've clarified your view on my 8A explication of your feelings. And, yet again, your feelings are unclear. Are we doing 2A -- if so address why teenagers lack 2A rights but not SD rights and/or why Heller is not cited in state SD cases? Are we doing 5A -- if so explain why the duty to retreat or the free of fault limit is not a Due Process issue (or whether defense of property is also a federal constitutional 5A right since the text addresses "property")? Are we doing 8A -- I'm with you here, but only in extreme cases and only as a limit on "punishment"? There is also the 9th and 10th Amendment -- I am again game to hear about your feelings there, though I know not to expect any fidelity from you to actual law.
What's especially amusing is how much you sound like the kind of advocate that Justice Scalia was always keen to criticize by seeking to insert into the Constutition some right that is not in the text. I know you and lots of other folks feel that certain rights ought to be "found" in the Constitution, but there needs to be at least some textual tether, no? Or do we all get to make up constitutional rights as serves our feelings in every context, federalist?
Posted by: Doug B | Apr 8, 2024 1:47:27 PM
First of all, it doesn't matter whether it's defense of self/defense of others when it's your kid (hence my choice). But you are essentially arguing that even in a clear case like that, it is constitutional to prosecute/incarcerate. But the right to one's life is constitutionally protected, and if the state purported to take it away, then that's enough state action to make a DP claim on that basis.
Even Scalia knew that one had the right to direct the upbringing of one's child, but only in the marriage situation. (There was a case where a stranger to the marriage tried to assert visitation.)
Posted by: federalist | Apr 8, 2024 6:05:19 PM
Yes, federalist, it is constitutional for a state to prosecute an intentional killer subject to common law/statutory defenses the state provides. What text or interpretation of the Constituton says otherwise? And what part of the Constitution suggests defense of "your kid" is constitutioanlly different than defense of others' kids? How about my sister's kids? What if my (adopted) "kid" is a big adult?
Again, please point to the hidden "federalist feelings" part of the Constitution that spells out these magic unstated federal rights to block state prosecutions in some (limited?) set of cases, You need to show me where to find these magical constitutional rules becuase I've not seen any case discussing them despite many thousands of self-defense claims being robustly litigated in every state's criminal system. And since you've still not tethered your claim to any constitutional text, it is hard to look for cases that align with your feelings.
And how has a state "purported to take [life] away" when it prosecutes someone under its standard crimal laws? Are you trying to make a (failed) DeShaney argument that the state is liable for private violence? I can't even understand what you are trying to claim because it is so divorced from established legal doctrines or any constitutional text.
Also, I think you have Justice Scalia wrong, too: in Troxel v. Granville, 530 U.S. 57 (2000), he explains that he does NOT find any judicially enforceable right to child rearing in the Constitution:
"[W]hile I would think it entirely compatible with the commitment to representative democracy set forth in the founding documents to argue, in legislative chambers or in electoral campaigns, that the state has no power to interfere with parents’ authority over the rearing of their children, I do not believe that the power which the Constitution confers upon me as a judge entitles me to deny legal effect to laws that (in my view) infringe upon what is (in my view) that unenumerated right." https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/99-138.ZD1.html
(Also, in Michael H. v. Gerald D., 491 U.S. 110 (1989), the Scalia opinion you reference, the Justice stressed his ruling "does not choose between these two 'freedoms,' but leaves that to the people of California." In other words, the ruling stands for generally leaving it to the states to sort through competing claims of competing freedoms.)
The more you grasp at straws, federalist, the less clear and cogent your claims. Or, perhaps more importantly, you keep showing how strong feelings can cloud one's understanding of constitutional laws and doctrines. That you have no law to cite (and get it wrong when trying and keep dodging 8A notions) should enourage you to stop digging --- unless you can find some viable doctrine at the bottom of the holes you are making.
Posted by: Doug B | Apr 8, 2024 8:51:43 PM
