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What’s next? Are parents who don’t lock up the Hostess Ding Dongs going to be held criminally liable for their child’s obesity?
On Sept. 4, 14-year-old Colt Gray allegedly used a semiautomatic rifle to kill four people at his Georgia high school. Using the recent Michigan prosecution of the Crumbley family as a template, Georgia authorities have charged Colt Gray’s father with second-degree murder. By what artful calculus are prosecutors arriving at this indictment?
Is our justice system dispassionately rooted in the principle of personal accountability? Or, blinded by retributive passions, is it simply a thinly disguised mechanism of mob vengeance? In other words, does it seek someone — anyone — to blame and punish as harshly as possible?
In February, Michigan jurors knew what was expected of them, and the Crumbleys were wrongly convicted. Colt Gray’s father will assuredly be a victim of this same travesty of justice.
Scott R. Hammond
Aina Haina
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