Posted on 08/16/2006 10:04:23 AM PDT by flutters
Kenton athletes caused wreck that seriously injured 2 others; judge delays 60-day sentences
KENTON, Ohio — Two teenagers who pulled a stunt last winter that left a man physically disabled and his friend brain-damaged will each spend 60 days in juvenile detention, but not before they finish the upcoming high-school football season.
Judge Gary F. McKinley told a standing-room-only crowd in his courtroom yesterday that he knows his decision to allow standout Kenton High School athletes Dailyn Campbell, 16, and Jesse Howard, 17, to play sports before serving their sentences will be unpopular.
Five deputies were on hand during the sentencing hearing in Hardin County Common Pleas Court, and McKinley told the emotional crowd that he would hold anyone who had an outburst in contempt.
"I’m cutting you somewhat of a break here, and the court will get criticized for this," McKinley told Campbell.
The retired Union County juvenile court judge assigned to hear the cases said he had waffled when trying to decide whether to delay any sentence until after football season.
"I shouldn’t even be doing this," he told Campbell, a junior quarterback for the Kenton Wildcats, who won state titles in 2001 and 2002.
At those words, more than a dozen relatives of the two who were injured in the prank began to sob. Campbell’s mother and stepfather, sitting behind the victims’ families, looked relieved.
Campbell and Howard each pleaded no contest last month to two charges of vehicular vandalism. They both also pleaded to juvenile-delinquency counts of petty theft and possession of criminal tools. Prosecutors say Campbell and Howard and three others who are awaiting trial stole a decoy deer last November, painted it with obscenities and then placed it in the middle of a darkened rural road to see what would happen when drivers approached.
Robert Roby Jr., who was 18 at the time, swerved to miss the deer. His car rolled and crashed as Campbell and the other boys watched.
Both victims’ families pleaded with the judge to make an example of Campbell and Howard.
"None of these guys will ever know what our sons have gone through," Roby’s mother, Mary, wrote to the court. "They don’t think they did anything wrong. If they get nothing for what they’ve done, they’ll do something worse later. They need more than a slap on the wrist."
Roby nearly lost his right leg in the crash, and is facing his 11th surgery in the next few weeks, his mother said yesterday.
Robert Roby’s passenger, 17-year-old Dustin Zachariah, was on life support for several days and had broken bones, two collapsed lungs and brain damage. He now has the cognitive ability of a sixth-grader, his mother, Kathy Piper, said.
In addition to the 60-day sentence, which will begin at the Logan County Juvenile Detention Center after football season, Campbell and Howard are on house arrest and will be for six months after detention; must pay fines and restitution; must write a 500-word essay on "Why I should think before I act"; and must complete 1,500 and 500 hours of community service, respectively.
McKinley suspended two, one-year terms of commitment to the Ohio Department of Youth Services for both boys, so if they violate their probation those sentences could be invoked.
Campbell was sentenced first. The victims’ families left the courtroom before Howard was sentenced.
"They said they would not attend this hearing as their own way of showing protest to the previous ruling," Prosecutor Brad Bailey told McKinley. Piper had the victims’ advocate read a statement, saying that the judge’s ruling told her "that my son now is not only being pushed aside, but he’s been forgotten."
During their hearings, Campbell and Howard apologized. Campbell, who had two previous juvenile court convictions, showed no emotion and looked only at the judge. During Campbell’s apology, McKinley admonished him for mumbling.
Howard looked into the face of the victims’ advocate as she read the families’ statements. He wiped tears from his cheeks as he said he was sorry.
"I think every day that I hurt someone, and that hurts me inside," Howard said.
Kenton is pretty far north of Columbus....
Given the limited details given about the placement of the deer (over a hill, on a sharp curve, etc.) you might wish to "rethink" your comments placing the majority of the blame on the driver.
Give us a break. We have a lot more sense than this.
There have been several football players involved in legal issues over the last year or so just around the DFW area. I know of only one that was originally going to play (and keep in mind, this was AFTER his punishment), but the coach got so much pressure I believe he relented and kept him off the team. There was a transfer involved since the school the kid had gone to kicked him out of school, I believe.
The rest of the guys didn't play.
Since judges are elected in Texas, I dare say nothing approaching this would have occurred.
This wasn't in Columbus, it was in Kenton, Ohio (northwest Ohio, near Toledo.)
Wow, good post. Very good points!
What is the penalty for derailing a train?
Do you think that the parents of the injured kids should be able to sue the football players or their parents for damages?
"According to the Response Insurance group, car-deer crashes nationwide kill 150 people and a half-million deer each year, and cause an average of $2,000 in vehicle damage per crash. In Wisconsin, 11 people were killed in car-deer crashes in 2004."
Swerving to avoid what appears to be a full-sized deer in the road is not what I would call "driving recklessly", given that they could have been killed had they hit a real deer. We have the benefit of 20-20 hindsight, knowing they could have hit that decoy with little damage.
The fact that the driver was only 18 and lost control of the car in no way mitigates the fact that he attempted to do the correct thing.
The foolish "pranksters" got off easy. Plus, delaying that easy sentence made matters even worse.
> I'm sure its not the first lesson these two have gotten in "the privileged life of a jock" genre.
Yeah, but it'll probably be the last. For most jocks, High School is the pinnacle of their lives. All downhill from there...
BWAAAHAHAHAHAAAA! Nerds rule!
Ohio is every bit as crazy about football as Texas. Spent my college years there (late '70s). You could drive around for miles and see nothing but pastures, cornfields and the like, and then, off in the distance would appear an eerie glow.
High school football stadium on friday nights.
Ohio and Pennsylvania are just as football crazy as anywhere in the South.
Ohio is every bit as hardcore a football state as the ones you mention.
They give out scholarships to "pranksters" who have served time in juvenile detention? If I was a relative of one of those injured, I'd make sure, by anonymous letter, that the college was aware of their criminal past.
What a complete load of apologistic nonsense. If one puts a object as large as a deer in the road it is entirely reasonable to expect that a car doing the speed limit is going to swerve. Even if they were speeding, the primary cause of this accident was the placement of the large object into the road. Any reasonable person would also understand that placing a large object in the road could very well lead to a serious or even deadly accident. To make convoluted excuses that shift most of the blame to the victim is ludicrous.
Tough. I think the victims had a little more wrecked than a HS football season. I swear, Marx was wrong. Sports are the opiate of the masses.
they're 16 and 17, previous record on the younger. why weren't they charged for attempted murder, and tried as adults?
also, why did the driver swerve? i thought everyone knew that you should always hit a deer straight on. deer cause less damage than a tree or rolling.
Probably because they wanted someone on the team who had once written a 500 word essay.
I'm so outraged, my head is going to explode! This judge needs a good ass kicking. I hope the town is rallying around the two victims and their families and will see to it that this p.o.s. judge will never be re-elected.
He's a retired judge. How do you impeach someone who is retired? This judge probably only works a few hours a year filling in when asked.
The kids should do the time now and pay the consequences. The judge might have been rationalizing the delayed sentence by figuring they would hurt their chances of a college scholarship if they missed part of the season. Bad decision.
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