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Feb. 3, 2024 - Lionel Nation
36:46
Should A Parent Be Criminally Liable for A Lunatic Minor Kid Kills Someone With A Gun?
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All of us, I believe, have an inherent sense of responsibility when it comes to apportioning liability.
As to various people's behavior.
Right?
And there is a case, a Michigan case, which should scare you to no end.
And even though it has no precedence outside of Michigan, it deals nonetheless with something which is very important.
And that is the idea of responsibility and liability for parents.
Apparently, there was a case of a troubled teen.
How many people have heard of troubled teens before?
Maybe you were one.
Maybe you were extremely troubled.
Maybe you were really, really, really troubled.
But you never killed anybody.
Never.
Maybe you were raised in homes with guns and firearms.
But you never killed anybody.
You never hurt anybody.
Never.
Never.
You lived in a home where the parents took drugs, but you didn't do drugs.
And you might have been beaten or abused as a child, but you never beat or abused anybody else.
There are people who are in prison, who are off the psychopath range.
Off the range.
They are beyond crazed.
And they've never killed anybody.
Go figure that one out.
So there are people who confound and break the rules constantly.
And they've never hurt anyone.
They never did anyone.
So this woman, and they're out to make her to be this degenerate.
They're making her out to be this swinger and she, you know, met with this fireman and she did all this stuff and they would hook up while her son, this demented kid, and by the way, they may have had firearms around the house.
They're doing everything in the power to charge her with involuntary manslaughter.
Now, I must admit, As a trial lawyer, there is a part of me that likes to sometimes see the connection for liability purposes.
That's the professional side.
That's the theoretical side.
That's the scientific side.
That's the, you know, can a case be made, you know, sort of thing.
Okay, okay.
It's interesting.
And you don't necessarily have to...
Let me say it this way.
You don't have to love your client.
You don't have to agree with what your client did.
Many times you don't.
In order to advance a defense, by the same token, sometimes as a prosecutor, you will be asked to advocate a causation argument on behalf of your client, namely the state or the federal government.
You're arguing what they would argue if they knew what you knew.
There are some times when you can represent a doctor who has done something that you, if it happened to you, you would go crazy in terms of not negligence, but a mistake.
But you represent the doctor, and you represent the person, and you're there to explain things through the eyes of the doctor who would say what you would say.
If only he knew what you knew.
So I've got no problem with that.
That's not something that people will say, how can you represent somebody who's guilty?
Because you're a criminal lawyer.
But here's the problem that I have.
They are trying to bootstrap more and more liability as to handguns to do everything in their power to remove handguns from our World.
They are doing everything in their power.
Let me say this again.
To remove handguns from our world.
Everywhere.
They're doing everything in their power.
And this is something which we have to say no to.
Now, this may be a terrible woman.
She may be a negligent woman.
She may be somebody who is the worst parent.
Did you get a load of her?
She went to these.
This is terrible for me to say.
And I'm going to say something that's terrible.
I'm going to say something that's terrible.
She apparently liked to hook up with this fireman friend that she used to hang around with.
And they would show up to various events.
Did you see her Jennifer Crumbly 45?
Imagine showing up and you're a part of some...
Swapping liaison.
And you get Jennifer Grumbly.
With all due respect.
With all due respect.
Dear God.
I'm sorry.
I know it's terrible.
I know it's terrible to say it.
If she can get lucky, there's no reason anybody else can't.
I'm solemn on this thing.
I know it's cruel.
It's cruel.
It's terrible.
But you agree with me 100%.
Check out this loyal fire chief, Brian Maluch, who had an affair with the mob.
This poor guy.
What are they bringing him into it?
There he is.
He's a fireman.
And there he is, Ethan Crumbly, now 17, was sentenced in December 2, life in prison without the possibility of parole for killing four students and injuring six others.
She apparently was so, the prosecutors claimed that Crumbly was so preoccupied that she ignored her son.
It's not her duty to make sure the son doesn't kill anybody.
None.
It doesn't make any sense.
Prosecutors also showcase excerpts from Ethan's journal in which he wrote that my parents won't listen to me about help or a therapist.
And I have zero help from my mental problems and causing me to shoot up the effing school.
Is that their fault?
Is that their fault?
Those diary entries seem to have come as a shock to the mother who said she felt like I had an open door.
He can come to tell me anything.
Let me ask you something.
Whose fault is this?
You're going to find her responsible?
You're going to find her liable for this guy?
No.
I won't.
I can understand the theory.
It's novel.
No way.
Absolutely no way.
It's that kid's fault.
Let me explain something to you.
And this is a very, very important, very, very critical thing for us to talk about and to think about.
And I know there are some of you who might yourself have children who might have been problems, a great source of problems.
You might be thinking to yourself, Maybe you haven't had enough, or done enough.
Maybe you wonder sometimes, is this kid okay?
Maybe he's really weird.
But to shoot people up, it's still a rarity.
Let me stop you right now for just one second.
Let me remind you of something, my friends.
This is very, very critical, very, very important for you to understand and for you to grasp this piece of information.
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So my friends, let's take a quick vote.
We are in the jury room.
I'm the foreman.
Let's quick take a vote.
Do you believe this woman or any woman should be liable?
Criminally liable.
Not civilly.
Civils are different.
Civils are really easy burden.
Let's make it criminal.
Should be criminally liable for the criminal activities.
The murderous activities of her daughter, of her son, in this particular case, son.
Yes or no?
Let's take a quick vote.
Let's see how we're doing.
Yes or no?
Guilty one, not guilty two.
If you would vote for her guilty, give me the number one.
If not, number two.
Let's hear it.
Guilty one, put the number one for guilty.
Number two for not guilty.
We got a guilty, not guilty, not guilty.
Guilty.
Not guilty.
Keep going.
Not guilty.
Guilty.
Look at this.
This is interesting.
Somebody named Vincent says not guilty.
Flat Earth says three because always funny.
You know how people want to be funny.
I'm funny.
I put three.
Zero.
You could do zero.
Maybe four.
Child neglect, guilty.
Child neglect, guilty.
If a parent is guilty, let me explain to you one of the...
This is how negligence works.
You ready for this?
This is legal 101.
This is legal 101.
This is law school 101.
You're going to learn something here.
And it works like this.
Let me explain this to you.
In order to prove negligence, any kind of negligence, negligence regarding cars, driving, on the road, anything, you have four, basically four elements.
Number one, is there a duty, a duty, That the parent has, in this case, to the world, not the son.
Think about this.
We're not saying the parent was guilty.
I mean, it depends upon your argument.
If a parent, let's say, has a drinking problem or falls asleep because they're drunk and doesn't keep an eye on the baby who crawls outside and drowns in the pool, is that mother liable?
Well, we've got to go through the issues.
Number one, does the mother owe a duty of care to the child?
Yes.
Does the mother owe a duty of care to society?
Because they're charging her, this crumbly lady, with involuntary manslaughter, which is basically her victimization of society.
Not the child.
So does the person, does the mother, does the parent owe a duty to society?
Now, by analogy, there is something called strict liability or liability without fault.
Wild animals, explosives, things that are just...
If you have a wild animal...
A cheetah, you know, whatever.
And this thing gets out of the cage or does something.
You are liable.
No matter what you did.
There are other forms of liability.
Interesting.
One of it is attractive nuisance.
You have a pool in your backyard.
You leave it on a tent.
That's a bad example.
They used to call it the turntable doctor.
Turntable used to be this device.
You see it at...
The railroad changing station where they would turn the train to make it go the other way.
Kids would come in and play and lose their fingers.
And if there is something that you know is attractive to children and you're put on notice, it should be put on notice, you owe a different duty to make sure kids don't get to it.
John McGuire, who couldn't get hired, says, Here's an option.
Since the state can take away your child, that is, claim dominion, doesn't the ultimate responsibility lie with the state?
Well, it might, and that's why they could argue why they're finding the parent guilty.
See, I would argue that the parent owes a duty to the child, The public.
Now, you could argue, this person had, should he or she have looked at this?
Should they have done what?
If you have a child who is writing specifically, I'm going to shoot people up because of my mental health.
Does that put you on notice?
Does that change anything?
I'm going to kill myself.
I'm going to do something drastic.
They're going to notice me.
What are you supposed to do?
Lock the child up?
Now the argument is this, and this is where I tend to be a little bit different.
If you, listen to me carefully, if you leave guns around, And a child gets into your gun, you leave it out in the open, you leave the gun, whatever it is.
In that particular case, you've got to ask yourself the question, does that mean you have a duty to keep guns and firearms?
Yes.
Absolutely.
So if a child creeps into your room and sees where you put the gun every night because you haven't locked it, you haven't taken reasonable care to keep that gun away, should the parent be liable?
Is there a duty?
Remember, the first step is, is there a duty?
Let me go through the rules and then we'll go back.
It might make more sense.
Number one, is there a duty?
Did the parent owes to either the child or society?
Number two, was there a breach of that duty?
Very important.
Did the parent breach that duty?
Number three, are there damages?
And was or were the damages?
Let me rephrase this.
Was the breach, the violation of this duty, the The approximate cause of these damages.
Let me give you an example.
You're driving down the road crazily, fast, speeding.
Do you owe a duty to drive reasonably in subdivisions in the street?
Yes.
Number two, did you breach that duty by a degree?
Yes.
Number three, did you, let's say you drive and you hit somebody.
Did you cause damages?
Yes.
And were the damages caused by virtue of this breach of the duty of care?
Absolutely.
That's negligence.
You've just proved it.
Let me ask you this question.
The facts are the same.
You're driving through a neighborhood too fast, 80 miles an hour.
An old woman walks out.
She's going to get the newspaper.
She hears your loud...
Muscle car zipping through the neighborhood.
She becomes frightened, has a heart attack, and dies.
And the doctors say, it was because of that.
It was because of this fright.
So number one, did you owe a duty of care?
Yes.
Yes, not to speak.
Yes.
Number two, did you breach that duty?
Yes, you did.
Number three, were there damages?
For the sake of argument, yes, there was.
Somebody died.
This woman died.
Okay.
Was her death?
The cause of this breach?
Or was the breach, rather, the cause of the death?
I get confused.
And the answer is that, well, maybe, but the issue then is, and here's the issue that for years has been subject to law classes.
It's called the Paul's Graf Test.
It's foreseeability.
Did you foresee that driving fast, Through a neighborhood, speeding, that you could possibly run into some woman or have a woman encounter you, who by virtue of your speed is so freaked out that she says, and died?
No!
Hitting somebody?
Yes.
Yes.
But this?
Now let's go back to this woman.
Now remember, I'm talking about negligence.
That's civil.
This crumbly lady, she's charged with criminal liability.
Criminal, not civil.
Civil liability is easy.
So this duty of care, you know, the four elements of negligence, that's civil law.
That's torts.
Hers is criminal.
It's a different story.
It's harder to prove.
Real hard.
Reasonable doubt?
I mean, I would tell you right now, no matter what.
Civil case.
We might have something here.
You might not notice the difference, but to me, a civil case makes it a different story.
John McGuire says, if the combination to your guns is your child's birthday, are you liable for not taking enough care when the kid figures out the combination?
The answer could very well be yes.
Absolutely.
Let me ask you this, John.
What if you left the serial number?
What if you left the password?
Taped to the front of the vault or the safe.
Well, that's obviously crazy, right?
Well, one step removed from that is you use the child's birthday.
These are issues.
On a civil matter, that could very well be.
Is it more likely than not that the person is liable civilly?
Yes.
Criminally, understand this.
This is a teeter-totter, right?
Swing, not swing set.
Teeter-totter, whatever it's called.
This is 50-50.
In order to prove a case civilly, you have to prove just a little bit more.
Is it more likely than not?
Is it more likely than not?
If a medical, if a doctor commits medical malpractice and you say, is it more likely than not that that death was caused by the doctor?
Is it more likely?
Is it 50.1?
Yeah, well, probably.
That's good enough.
That's civil liability.
It's very easy.
Very easy.
Is it more likely?
It's called the preponderance of the evidence.
Is it more likely than not that this would affect?
Is it more likely than not?
That in this case, in a civil case, that this kid would not have shot somebody, had the mother exercised just a little bit of care, maybe...
But then you say, but was the mother put on notice of this?
What's the evidence?
Did she know?
Did he say, hey mom, by the way, I'm going to kill people.
I'm going to do something.
Did the police come and say, Mrs. Crumbly, yes, we just found your son with all these guns and these notes he wrote that says, I'm going to kill people.
That's...
In that case involving You know, the shooting, not shady, stony, sandy hook.
The kid was a nut.
But is it, are you?
Is it foreseeable that your kid's going to start shooting people?
See, mental health, for the most part, some of you are mentally ill.
People don't do anything like that.
People don't act like that.
They don't do anything.
Necessarily, that's construed or considered to be dangerous.
But in this case, criminal?
No.
Bad mother?
Probably.
Sure.
Going out and hooking up and whatever, fine.
And don't think for a moment that's not going to play into this.
And the mother, from what I'm able to read, and I know unless you're in that courtroom and you get to read the emotions and the reactions and the way people act, you really don't know.
But if what I'm reading I think is correct, the mother is being very matter-of-factual.
She says, yeah, I did that.
I did that.
I did that.
What is a parent's liability?
You know and I know parents take too, too much credit and too, too much blame for their kids.
I like this.
Free says, look, the kid is responsible for his actions.
All other arguments are just a conversation with a mad hatter down the rabbit hole.
I tend to agree.
I tend to agree.
Absolutely.
100%.
His brother's mother, stepmother, said she had to bring her son home From Michigan because of the family.
Yes, she's negligent criminally.
She knew without a reasonable doubt that something was emotionally and mentally wrong.
Yes, she's criminally negligent.
She knew without a reasonable doubt.
You're implying you're adding some things.
Okay, here's the question.
Just because you knew something was wrong with him, you've got a kid.
What happens if instead of the gun, I think her lawyer may have said this, the kid goes and he grabs a knife from the drawer.
A steak knife.
Not a gun.
Goes out and kills somebody.
Same thing.
How about goes out and strangle somebody?
Same thing.
What is she supposed to do?
Do you know how many kids are so, I mean, I say this kind of jokingly, but some of you.
You've got people, you've got kids who are on drugs, maybe they're alcoholic, maybe they're on some, who knows, schizoid, schizoaffective, who, whatever, on spectra.
What are you supposed to do?
Lock him up?
What?
Criminal negligence?
Involuntary manslaughter?
No way.
Criminal?
Civil?
Remember, civil.
Is it more likely, well, maybe, you know, she couldn't, maybe, okay.
Not civil.
Well, all right, okay, all right.
Maybe.
This is nuts.
This is absolutely nuts.
They are doing everything.
The state takes kids away.
When the parents aren't doing enough, they take kids away when the parents do too much.
They take kids away when they're saying, no, I don't want my child to have puberty blockers.
Sorry, taking your kid away.
Wait a minute.
Who's in charge here?
Who is in charge?
This is not like a dog where you are put on notice.
John McGrath says, as a parent, if I'm going to...
I want written indemnity and immunity from the state to resolve the issues in any way I see fit.
Well, it's interesting that you say that, John.
I want you to imagine this.
Imagine calling your local police station.
I'd like to speak to the supervisor in charge.
They always do that on YouTube channels, by the way.
Whenever somebody's pulled over for something, they always say, I want to talk to the supervisor.
Supervisor, yes, I'm going to ask you a question.
I need to discipline my child.
What can I do to my child?
What can I do?
What?
Tell me what.
I want to spank my child.
How hard can I spank my child?
What do you recommend?
How much can I spank?
You tell me what can I do.
They say, I can't answer the question.
Well, you may come over here if I spank too much, and you're going to say that was excessive.
You're going to take my kid away from me, so you must have some guideline.
Tell me what I can do.
They can't answer.
I want to discipline my child.
I'm afraid that my child might hurt somebody.
What has he done so far?
Well, it's not...
I don't know.
I'm just worried.
So I've got my son locked up.
That's false imprisonment.
You can't do that.
Yeah, but I'm afraid...
That he's going to do something.
And I've called all kinds of resources.
They're saying, look, unless he said something, but I'm telling you, there's something wrong with him.
He's going to hurt somebody.
Let's say he does hurt somebody.
Would the state be liable?
There's sovereign immunity.
You can't sue the state, but would the state be liable?
I don't know.
Do you have guns at home?
It's very easy to make guns safe.
Very, very, very, very easy.
Very easy.
These boxes, these safe are so terrific with combination numbers and the like.
Very, very simple.
What needs to be done specifically is to find a way to be able to enjoy your ability to possess legally a gun.
But at the same token, you've got to be able to protect people from People getting into your guns, from getting into your guns and stealing them, etc., etc.
There's a balance.
But for you to think that this kid could have stabbed, could have hurt somebody in a variety of reasons, guns are one method of this.
One method.
There's pillows to smother.
I can go on and on.
I do not like the fact that this mother...
No matter how morally despicable you may think she is by virtue of her catting around because that's what they're trying to do.
They're trying to play this up.
She's a fallen woman and she's involved in this sex swinging and this debauched lifestyle and she's not even at home and her kid is saying, Mommy, please help me because I'm going to kill somebody.
Nonsense.
Nonsense.
Absolute nonsense.
It's a very scary thing.
Don't think for a moment that this has nothing to do with the fact that it's guns.
They want more than anything else to take your guns away from you.
They hate the Second Amendment.
So right now, after what we've said, very simple.
I ask you, members of the jury, As for the count of involuntary manslaughter, the crime, not the civil tort, not the civil negligence action, but criminal.
How do you find guilty or not guilty?
Push number one for guilty, number two for not guilty.
What do you do?
What is it?
After what we've discussed, what is your position?
What?
What do you think?
Guilty or not guilty?
We have a not guilty, a not guilty, a not guilty, a guilty, a not guilty, not guilty.
not guilty Skinny Vinny is talking to somebody else, not paying attention.
That's quite alright.
No problem.
I understand that.
There's no reason why people...
I can't force you to participate in one of the most interesting subjects.
Not guilty.
I think I've done a very good job.
Not guilty.
Not guilty.
Okay.
Remember, my friends, all you have to do...
All you have to do to find somebody not guilty in a criminal case is to say, I found a reasonable doubt.
That's all.
I have a reason why I am doubting this.
That's all.
I didn't say she didn't do something.
I'm not saying I like her.
I'm not saying she didn't do anything.
I'm saying she's a terrible person.
But you're giving me the chance.
If they charged her with arson, arson!
And you say, wait a minute.
What?
Arson?
Arson?
Nah.
Not guilty.
Excuse me.
He killed people.
Yeah, but they charged him with arson.
What difference does it make?
It has a lot to do with it.
She's on trial.
I can't find her guilty of arson.
Well, by that analogy, that's all you have to do.
You have to ask yourself.
I have a reasonable doubt.
I do not believe that she's guilty of this.
I don't know the foreseeability.
She might, if you gave me another charge, how about just being a fuck-up?
Maybe, if that's a charge, I'll find her guilty of that.
But involuntary manslaughter?
No.
He could have stabbed somebody.
That's precisely the issue.
And the issue is not what you think about guns.
The issue is not whether she's a good parent.
That's not it.
The issue is very, very, very simply.
It means, very simply, what do you think in terms of the causation, so to speak, the foreseeability, all of that.
I would have special jury instructions as well.
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So my friends, that's it.
You were most good, most wise, most terrific, most sapient.
You know how to exactly answer the question.
That's all I ask.
Remember, the issue is not whether she's a good parent.
The issue is not about mental illness.
The issue is not about guns.
That's not the issue.
The issue is, was she criminally liable?
And could she have even foreseen this?
Very interesting.
All right, dear friends, have a great and glorious day.
See you tomorrow at 8 a.m.
Thank you so much for being a part of this.
Until then, my friends, remember, the monkey's dead.
The show's over.
Sue you.
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