Case against father of Georgia school shooting suspect tests the limits of parental blame

But the charges against Gray are much harsher, and the judge on Friday said he faces a maximum total of 180 years in prison if found guilty on all charges.

Smith on Friday said the second-degree felony murder charge against Gray is geared toward “cruelty to children,” and he was charged with two counts because of the two students who were killed.

The four counts of involuntary manslaughter are based on the four deceased victims, Smith said, and may hinge on whether someone exhibited “reckless conduct.”

Georgia law prohibits the selling or furnishing of pistols and revolvers to minors under 18, although there may be limited exceptions for minors to handle firearms, such as during a hunting course, at a shooting range or on parental property with permission.

Smith declined to say if Gray had any gun locks or other mechanisms to secure his firearms inside the home.

J. Tom Morgan, a former prosecutor in DeKalb County, Georgia, who teaches criminology at Western Carolina University, said he would expect Gray’s defense to seek to have the charges thrown out.

But while Georgia, unlike other states, has no law requiring “safe storage” of firearms to prevent children from gaining access, Morgan said parents still have an obligation to ensure that guns are not easily attainable, particularly when their child may have a propensity to want to commit violence.

“I grew up in a rural community in Georgia, where there is strong Second Amendment support,” Morgan said, “but the people I know, the hunters are very responsible. If you’re going to have a gun, you’re going to have to have it responsibly.”

Andrew Fleischman, a criminal defense lawyer in Georgia, said the case against Gray will come down, in part, to whether prosecutors can establish that he consciously disregarded the substantial and unjustifiable risk that other minors could suffer excessive physical or emotional pain.

“If dad bought his kid a gun knowing the kid had threatened to shoot classmates, he was consciously disregarding that risk,” Fleischman said. “The risk is likely substantial because of the prior threats and the act is unjustifiable because there’s no good reason to buy your teen” an AR-15-style rifle.

Michael Dezsi, a lawyer representing Jennifer Crumbley as she seeks to appeal her conviction, said the charges in Georgia are an example of shifting blame onto parents in the absence of states passing meaningful gun legislation.

As with the Crumbleys’ son, who pleaded guilty as an adult and was sentenced to life in prison, it’s “contradictory,” Dezsi said, to charge shooters as adults but then also consider their parents responsible.  

“It’s a very slippery slope and sets a bad precedent that we’re going to start charging parents for actions that are more akin to negligence that can be resolved in a civil manner,” he said.

But Karen McDonald, the Michigan prosecutor who brought charges against the Crumbleys, said her case was not intended to be a precedent, and that it involved such a “rare, egregious set of facts” that she hoped it wouldn’t happen again.

The prosecution’s case in Georgia is a positive outcome, McDonald told NBC affiliate WDIV, if it “leads to people asking questions about where the gun was obtained.”

Still, gun safety groups are expressing concern that another mass shooting may have occurred despite the high-profile trial in Michigan that gained national attention because parents of a mass shooter were convicted for the first time.

“That verdict should have sent a clear message to people like Mr. Gray,” Nick Suplina, senior vice president for law and policy at Everytown for Gun Safety, said in a statement. “But unfortunately for the victims and their families, he did not heed that message to prevent a tragedy.”