He would have been about 11 that first time his name and photograph made the paper.
Five years later, he made print again. Only it was in a news story identifying him as the 16-year-old Gardner boy found dead in his backyard after an arranged fight with a high school classmate.
Nothing about the juxtaposition seems fair or just. Kids aren’t supposed to die, right?
But neither was it fair or just, it seemed to me, for the other kid in that fight to be facing up to three years in a juvenile lockup because he didn’t know about the heart condition that ultimately killed Dakota in February.
But that’s what 16-year-old Dustin Howard was facing, had he been convicted on an involuntary manslaughter charge.
The trial was to start Monday. Instead, negotiations produced a last-minute plea deal. If the judge agrees to the terms, Dustin would get no more than 18 months’ probation, or perhaps as little as 12, assuming he keeps his nose clean. And it’s a good assumption. The varsity soccer player has no criminal record or bad behavior in his school file.
I’ve heard some critics say probation isn’t much punishment for the death of a teen who wanted to grow up and become a lawyer. Dakota wanted to go to Georgetown Law School, they say.
And I’ve read where others claim that Dustin shouldn’t have been charged in the first place.
But the way I see it is this: The legal system got it right this time. This was justice.
Too often these days, courthouse machinery seems designed to exact the maximum punishment. When tragedy occurs, someone must be blamed, regardless of the circumstances.
For a while, this looked to be one of those cases. The original charge was reckless manslaughter, the Johnson County district attorney’s office said. Prosecutors wanted him tried as an adult.
After all, Dakota had long been the victim of bullying, according to family members. He had a heart condition and Dustin should have known better than to get in a fistfight with him.
When Dakota was stricken that day, Dustin and four other kids at the fight ran without calling 911.
That part about the 911 call was never in dispute. But as other facts emerged in preliminary court proceedings, a different story emerged.
While Dakota had been the victim of bullies, Dustin wasn’t one of them. In fact, Dakota challenged the bigger kid to a fight merely to see who was tougher.
A fun fight, they called it, not that it’s ever fun getting slugged, and Dustin did most of the slugging that day.
Thirty seconds later, Dakota lay motionless on the ground. According to the medical examiner, the stress of the fight had aggravated a heart condition he’d had since birth.
He had no business initiating a fight. But kids do stupid things sometimes.
Dustin was no exception. When Dakota collapsed, Dustin tried to revive him. When he couldn’t, he got scared and left without seeking help.
Stupid, irresponsible — no question about it.
And for that he’ll be paying a price, a fair one, it seems to me. Neither side complained Monday in juvenile court when Dustin pleaded no contest to a reduced charge, aggravated battery, a felony.
“There is a delicate walk in balancing justice and accountability in a situation like this,” Johnson County District Attorney Phill Kline told me.
Yes, that Phill Kline, with whom I’ve had my differences over the years. But in this instance, Kline and I are of the same mind when he says that Assistant DA Shelley Diehl “did an excellent job finding that balance under tragic circumstances.”
Defense attorney Debra Vermillion deserves credit, too, of course, as do both families for seeing the wisdom of the deal.
Trite as it sounds, sometimes the system works the way it’s supposed to and arrives at something approaching justice.
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