And Justice For All?

Holy crap - I don't even know what to say here, this is just sick.

Judge: Boys can serve sentence after football season

Associated Press

KENTON, Ohio - A judge decided two teenagers can complete their high school football seasons before they serve 60 day jail sentences for a car crash caused by a decoy deer placed in a country road. Two teens were injured.

Judge Gary McKinley, a retired Union County juvenile judge hearing the case in Hardin County Common Pleas Court, said he knows his decision will be criticized.

"I shouldn't be doing this, but I'm going to. I see positive things about participating in football," he told Dailyn Campbell, a junior quarterback.

The judge's office said he had no further comment Wednesday because of pending cases.

Campbell, 16, and Jesse Howard, 17, were each sentenced Tuesday to juvenile detention, to start after the football season this fall at Kenton High School.

Teens stole the decoy from a man's home and created a base to help it stand upright because it had only two legs, Hardin County Prosecutor Brad Bailey told the judge. They drove up and down the road watching as drivers swerved to avoid the decoy. Bailey said Howard didn't stop the prank.

Robert Roby Jr. of Kenton swerved to avoid the decoy deer on Nov. 18, and crashed his car into a pole and fence. His neck, collar bone, arm and leg were broken, and he has undergone 10 surgeries. His passenger, Dustin Zachariah, has brain damage, Bailey said.

"None of these guys will ever know what our sons have gone through," Roby's mother, Mary, wrote in a statement to the court. "If they get nothing for what they've done, they'll do something worse later. They need more than a slap on the wrist."

McKinley also placed the two teens on house arrest. They must pay fines and restitution, perform community service and write a 500-word essay titled "Why I should think before I act."

The judge suspended two one-year juvenile prison sentences for each boy.

In July, Campbell and Howard each pleaded no contest to two counts of vehicular vandalism and juvenile charges of delinquency by possession of criminal tools and misdemeanor theft.

Trials are scheduled in the fall for three other defendants.

Family and friends of the injured teens did not attend Howard's sentencing, leaving the courtroom after Campbell was sentenced.

"They said they would not attend this hearing as their own way of showing protest to the previous ruling," Bailey told the judge.

Zachariah now has the cognitive ability of a sixth grader, said his mother, Kathy Piper. When he applied for a job two weeks ago, he couldn't do the simple math on the application test, she said.

The teens' medical bills have reached $700,000 and are expected to top $1 million, Bailey said.

Both Campbell and Howard apologized during their sentencing hearings.

"I think every day that I hurt someone, and that hurts me inside," Howard said.

Is it just me - or has the judicial system in this country lost it's goddamn mind? Those kids should be put away for quiete some time and be forced to pay a percetange of their income for the rest of their lives to those poor innocent kids whose lives they utterly ruined. The judge needs to be disabarred for life. Period. No questions asked. That's just disgusting.