Why was full justice not done after Delaware girl was beaten to death in her high school bathroom?

© Jennifer Corbett, The (Wilmington, Del.) News Journal

Today I read the news about the disheartening end result of a trial in my native Delaware: "A 17-year-old Delaware girl will not serve prison time for last year's fatal attack of a classmate in a high school bathroom." This is a good example of "incomplete justice" as described in The Reptile by Don Keenan and David Ball.

To get justice we must arouse the Reptile. The Reptile does not care about lost causes. The Reptile will not dispense justice if she feels it will do no good. From the comments made by the presiding judge, it seems like his Reptile had thrown true justice out the window because according to him, it would benefit nobody:
"It is a case in which no one is looking to determine who wins and who loses because everyone has lost," said Family Court Judge Robert Coonin. "The community has lost, the defendants and their families have lost, and most importantly, Amy's family has lost.
"Nothing that any of us say or do here can ever change that — myself included."
Now it seems that this case was decided by bench trial - in other words, His Honor Coonin served dual rules as both the judge and jury. This is different from the jury trial process, where both sides have the opportunity to select the people who will decide the case.
I agree with the prosecutor and the victim's family that this case should not have been tried in Family Court - the attacker should have been tried as an adult in Superior Court. This should also have been a jury trial.
I emphatically disagree with the judge here for failing to dispense true justice. A sentence which reflected the appropriate punishment for the crime would have been more likely to prevent future tragedies as this from happening. I grew up in Delaware and the schools/neighborhoods there can be very rough, just like anywhere. But the Delaware community is smaller, and if a just verdict had been issued by the judge, I am sure the community would have taken notice. Just punishment in this case would have had an impact in my childhood community. Kids would know that if they acted the same way, the same punishment would await them too.
In a case where the facts were undisputed, that this girl assaulted the victim and caused her death, the judge's inadequate verdict only serves to perpetuate the tragedy. As Ball and Keenan warn, incomplete justice forever denies the victims and their families of closure. And regrettably, that is exactly what happened here: "I don't think there will ever be anything such as closure as it pertains to this situation because Amy will never come home..So while one of the assailants gets to be at Grace Cottage and her parents can come visit her on a regular basis that is not something Amy's family can do."