Let me clarify. The praksters are more at fault for causing the incident. The driver is more at fault for the severity of the incident.
If this were not a decoy on the road, but was instead a broken down vehicle on the road, or there was a dog on the road, the fault would lie entirely with the driver.
The kids actions were negligent and foolish, and they deserve to be punished for those actions.
Campbell doesn't deserve leniency whatsoever. He's the bad boy quarterback who keeps getting into trouble and not learning from his mistakes. Campbell's only 16 yrs old and already has two juvenile court convictions. When reading his "apology" he showed no emotion and even got admonished by the judge for mumbling, which is huge for this judge who doesn't believe in punishment fitting the crime and didn't even consider his criminal record.
I wasn't aware of these details. It sounds like from Campbell's past behavior, he deserves a sentence that is near the top end of the sentencing guidelines for what he did.
It does appear that Campbell's sentence included 1500 hours of community service, compared to 500 for Howard, so the Judge apparently did feel Campbell deserved a stronger sentence to some extent.
In that case, what's wrong with calling it just a plain old accident? I don't understand why we have to find fault with all accidents. There are degrees in which some are unavoidable.