Two sad and disturbing cases came to apparent resolutions this month with the sentencing of two young defendants. In fact, the end of the stories won’t be known for years, when the effects of the courts’ decisions are realized.

But the thoughtful and deliberate sentence handed to a Concordia Lutheran School student who admitted trying to kill a classmate nine months ago is likely to produce a better result than the 25-year prison term handed to a Kosciusko County boy who admitted conspiracy in the shooting death of his stepfather five months ago.

While both cases involved 15-year-old boys, the Allen County case was handled as a juvenile proceeding. Prosecutors sought to have the Concordia student tried as an adult on charges of attempted murder.

But Judge Stephen Sims of Allen Superior Court declined to waive him into adult court, ruling that he was not beyond rehabilitation in the juvenile justice system. He based his decision on the advice of mental health experts who examined the teen.

In the Kosciusko County case, Colt Lundy and 12-year-old Paul Gingerich were both waived to adult court to face charges of murder in the death of Phillip Danner, Lundy’s stepfather.

A week after the shooting, Kosciusko Superior Court Judge Duane G. Huffer denied pleas to leave their cases under juvenile court jurisdiction, hearing testimony not from mental health experts, but from a juvenile probation officer detailing Lundy’s single brush with the juvenile system.

In Allen County, Sims spent several weeks deciding on the most effective placement for the Concordia teen, who admitted taking a military-style knife to the school cafeteria, slipping up behind his band drum section leader and slicing open his neck. The judge ordered the student’s placement in White’s Residential and Family Services in Wabash, where the 15-year-old will receive psychiatric and therapeutic care. His treatment status will be reviewed every six months.

Lundy pleaded guilty earlier this month to a charge of conspiracy to commit murder. Judge Rex Reed of Kosciusko Circuit Court accepted the plea agreement Monday, sentencing Lundy to 25 years in prison – adult prison – and five years of probation. The judge said he hoped the probation period would ease Lundy’s transition back into the community.

Consider that the Concordia student will be housed with other young juveniles in a well-regarded facility, receiving treatment until the court determines he is prepared for release. By contrast, Lundy is likely to be housed in a special unit at the Wabash Valley Correctional Facility until he’s 18, then at a regular Department of Correction facility until he is released. Under DOC guidelines recognizing good behavior, education and participation in other programs, he could serve as little as half the sentence.

Lundy could return to society at age 28, having spent the previous 10 years behind concrete walls and barbed wire and under the influence of hardened adult criminals.

Only time will definitively tell which course was better, but reams of research on the psychological differences between adults and adolescents point to the Allen County court’s decision to protect the community from a dangerous youth while offering resources for rehabilitation. After a decade in adult prison, Colt Lundy’s fate – and the community’s – is anyone’s guess.