Death, Esq. Drops in on the Littleton Tragedy

The sixth stage of grief in America -- litigation -- has arrived in Littleton in the person of Geoffrey Fieger. As the rest of the country debates gun control, violent movies and the Internet, the family of slain student Isaiah Shoels is keeping it simple: they're suing the parents of Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold for $250 million for failing to supervise their children -- and they're getting Jack Kevorkian's lawyer to do it. "I'm just not sure this is good public policy," says TIME legal correspondent Adam Cohen. "The massacre was a tragedy for the shooters' parents as well as the victims. This just piles it on further." Not to mention that $250 million is quite a pile, and the legality of holding parents responsible for their kids' crimes is shaky at best. But Cohen says if anyone can do it, it's Fieger.

"This is the guy who won the Jenny Jones case, and that was shaky too. Here, he's got not only the tragedy working for him but that sawed-off gun barrel sitting on Harris' dresser." Fieger has already started with one sure-fire hot button -- that Shoels was singled out because he was black. And he thinks the families can pay up: though neither has $250 million, there's always homeowner's insurance, their houses and those reports that the Klebolds have a philanthropist uncle. "It's a difficult case to win," says Cohen. "But if you let him get in front of a jury and turn all the horror of Littleton onto those parents, he's got an excellent chance. We're all looking for someone to blame. Geoffrey Fieger is going to point them out to us.

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