CNN: Attorney Lauren Johnson-Norris Discusses Georgia School Shooting Case and Parent 9-6-24

Lauren Johnson-Norris is a criminal defense attorney at Johnson Criminal Law Group she's with me now. Good to see you, thank you.

We have a lot to get through. Let's just deal with this question of the father being charged. This has overtones of the crumbleys, which of course both parents were charged for neglect and a variety of many offenses under been sentenced subsequently is thisI know two cases doesn't make a trend but the speed with which the Georgia authorities have gone after the father I mean, your eyebrows raised.

Well, I think a lot of her eyebrows are raised and the legal community, but I’ll say the Georgia authorities were already familiar with the father and this minor, so they have this information. They already knew that there was something that was going on that may have led to this coming up, but I will say in the criminal law, it is unusual. We just don't see adults being held responsible for other people's conduct. We just don't see parents being held responsible for juveniles conduct, maybe in the civil system, we see that as a matter of restitution are financial damages, but seeing this happening in the criminal law certainly raises eyebrows to those of us who defend people in this system

Now, remember about the crumbleys, the evidence I mean, clearly they did not intend for their son to go out shooting, but the evidence was very strong, but they were oblivious to the point of negligence, to the point of criminal liability.
That's going to be the issue here is not just enough for the father to being a bit weird and about guns. They are going to have to prove that there was a causal link between what he did to face such serious charges.

Did you have to prove that and I don't think it's that easy. You know, we're dealing in this case with a kid who is 14-years-old. It's a little different than a 17-year-old in terms of that child's development, mental emotional development. Here we knew that this child had some had made some threats, though he denied it. His father said, I won't allow him access to guns but strangely, than provided him a firearm after that, the question is, what this father was he so negligent that he should be held responsible for the acts of this 14-year-old and don't get me wrong. What happened here is absolutely horrible.
We just didn't see in the law one individual held responsible for the accident if another.
So this parent child relationship and how we view parents and what they are responsible in terms of what their kids do, that sort of the new question, the new frontier we're facing in the courts on

I’m glad you talked about that new frontier because what's happening is it is being explored literally in front of us the parameters of it both in terms of the evidential issues required and I suspect in the various appeals that will follow to find out what their legal the legal extent of liability and culpability is.

It's a great point because how the community feels when we are all outraged saddened, and filled with emotion about what's happened here. But the law is supposed to be free from that emotion and look really at culpability and responsibility. And that's what lawyers do is we have to parse that out and ask courts to figure that out. We're really does the blame lies.

So let's talk about how we got to 180 odd years that he's not getting anything like that. If convicted, I assume it's because of the number of victims that you go by each number for the number of years for each victim when you multiply it out what is the 14th? the 14-year-old is facing similar a very large sentences if convicted

He is looking at potentially a life sentence though his age would would mitigate against that. But I will say there's sort of incompatible theories of the case here that the prosecution has brought forward as it relates to this 14-year-old so on one hand, they right away brought him to adult court, so he should be treated like an adult. On the other hand, they're saying his father should have recognized that as a child that he was responsible for his be here. So I don't know how the prosecution reconciles that, but it will be the job of the defense lawyers to come in and say those are untenable theories at the same time, you have to elect one and pick one, either treat him like a child or treat him like an adult.

Lauren, humor me, if you will and extrapolate this out into how much of a leap is it so father knows that son is disturbed, father gave son call for birthday, son drives call into crowd at concert father liable, all of this case.

We just don't see it i've represented people in horrible search circumstances unfortunately, and we just don't see parents being held responsible in this system. We have an entire juvenile delinquency system with children who are charged with very serious crimes and we just don't see parents being charged. Now, some states are exploring those laws with parental responsibility laws, but I can tell you, as a practitioner, we just don't see.