Reply #11: I was all ready to say that trying the kid as an adult and giving that

[dsc]

sentence was out of line but then I read this.

Both Gibson and Boyle have extensive criminal histories.

Tharp said Boyle was found delinquent in 2002 on charges of criminal damage to property charge and burglary, was put on probation and then violated it. He spent a year in a juvenile facility and was paroled in October, she said.

Gibson had juvenile adjudications for retail theft, battery and burglary, she said. He twice violated terms of probation and dropped out of his drug treatment program. He was sentenced to prison and once violated his parole but was discharged from parole less than a month before the park beating.

Tharp said some of Gibson's offenses "were of an outright sexual nature," including one in which he touched the buttocks of a female teacher with his groin and another in which he asked another student a sexual question, then beat him to the ground and kicked him.

"Sounds familiar," Tharp said. "No matter what the provocation was, there was nothing that would justify the beating" Costa received, she said.

end of quote

These boys have been given numerous chances and this priest nearly died. 30 months isn't out of line at all.