Teen Pleads Guilty in Fatal 2025 Crash That Killed Shaunte Canty

A guilty plea entered by 17-year-old Michael Collins sets up a sentencing fight that will test how far Prince George's County prosecutors are willing to push accountability for a teen driver whose reckless choices killed a 35-year-old mother.

Collins pleaded guilty to one count of grossly negligent manslaughter by motor vehicle and one count of auto theft for the August 26, 2025, collision at Sheriff Road and Martin Luther King Jr. Highway that left Shaunte Canty dead. In Maryland, grossly negligent manslaughter by motor vehicle is not a traffic citation or a civil finding. It is a criminal conviction requiring proof that a driver's conduct reflected a reckless disregard for human life that goes well beyond ordinary negligence. Collins, who was driving a reported stolen vehicle with three juvenile passengers when he ran a red light and struck Canty's car, now carries that conviction on an adult record.

State's Attorney Tara Jackson, whose office announced the plea on March 31, said prosecutors will ask the court to impose seven years in prison at the August 28 sentencing hearing, the top of the Maryland Sentencing Guidelines range. That number is less than half the 15-year statutory maximum Collins faces under the combined charges, a gap that community members who have followed the case since last summer will examine closely when court reconvenes.

"While today's plea marks an important step in this case, it cannot restore what was stolen from Shaunte's family," Jackson said. "Her future was tragically cut short because of the reckless behavior of this defendant, and this incident is a sobering reminder that such decisions on the road can have devastating and irreversible consequences."

The plea resolves the question of guilt but leaves others open for Canty's family. No restitution terms were detailed in the county's announcement, and a child who was in Canty's car at the time of the crash has no publicly outlined support mechanism through this proceeding. The August 28 hearing will determine the final measure of accountability, and the family will watch it knowing the agreed outcome forecloses the possibility of the full 15-year sentence.

The decision to prosecute Collins as an adult was itself a deliberate signal: the State's Attorney's Office used the weight of the outcome to bypass the juvenile system entirely. That choice is now a data point. Prince George's County prosecutors and the county's police department have faced sustained pressure to apply adult charging standards in fatal crashes involving juvenile drivers, and the Collins conviction will likely sharpen internal debates about when diversion ends and incarceration begins, and whether victim notification timelines in comparable cases move quickly enough for families navigating grief alongside legal proceedings.

MLK Highway and Sheriff Road form a corridor where vehicle theft and traffic fatalities have drawn repeated resident complaints. Collins's guilty plea converts those anxieties into a concrete legal outcome. Whether seven years reflects the county's standard for what happened at that intersection on August 26 will be the question hanging over the August sentencing.