One robin does not mean Spring has arrived. One case oddly decided does not predict a trend. And yet ....
The recent case of a mother - Jennifer Crumbley - being convicted of involuntary manslaughter for being negligent in the 4 murders committed by her 15 year old son Ethan. He used a semiautomatic pistol purchased for him by his father James.
The Crumbleys were more than negligent, that's relatively clear. Involuntary manslaughter seems harsh in her case, if not that of James who will be tried in April. What if it becomes a trend to imprison parents for the misdeeds of their children?
As we write this there are literally thousands of parents in the U.S. coping with mentally disturbed adolescents. As a parent would you continue to grapple with a sullen, rebellious teen with violent fantasies under circumstances where it could end with you in prison?
Would you instead perhaps take the kid to Child Protective Services and wash your hands of him or her? Or encourage the kid to run away as families once did with hard cases. Could you afford to do otherwise, given the need to hold down a job?
The unintended consequences of punishing parents for the misbehavior of almost-adult children could end up with CPS becoming the de facto 'parents' of thousands of troubled kids now not "in the system." I doubt "the system" could cope, without additional billions in tax revenues. And I wonder if there are sufficient "foster parents" to take them in?
My purpose in flagging this issue isn't to argue against the Crumbley verdict, those parents used poor judgment and were negligent. My purpose is to caution that our society needs to think through the downstream consequences - intended and unintended - of new legal doctrines.
