That’s the sentence for the four boys whose careless actions took the life of Danny Dahlquist. It was a plea bargain in which they agreed to plead guilty to involuntary manslaughter in exchange for the reduced sentence. They also have to pay monetary fines and court costs.

What do you think? Was justice served?

The jail time was a surprise — speculation was that they’d get off with only probation. I think jail time is appropriate; in fact, even six months seems a little short for taking someone’s life. On the other hand, there will be those who think that six months is too long for these “good boys” since it was, they say, just a “prank” that went horribly wrong.

I don’t see it as just a “prank,” on par with short-sheeting someone’s bed or TPing a house. This was a lethal combination of underage drinking and incendiary devices. Everything that happened that night was illegal. It was illegal for someone to deliver alcohol to someone underage. It was illegal for the underage students to be drinking. It was illegal to possess roman candles. It was illegal to use those roman candles to criminally damage someone’s property. What’s the difference between this and a drunk driver accidentally killing someone with his car? You can get 3-14 years in prison for aggravated DUI that results in the death of one or more persons. In light of that, six months seems pretty lenient.

And I know I’ll get flak for this, but ask yourself honestly, if this had been four African American youths down on Krause Avenue that did this exact same thing, what do you think public sentiment would have been? “Oh, these are good kids; go easy on them”? “Six months is too long; they should have only gotten probation”? I think we all know the answer to that.