I see no good answers here.
Two people dead way before their time. Two teenagers without either parent. One teenager who will never be the same....so we tend to think.
Absent significant punishment for the driver, I'm a bit skeptical on that last one. I won't bore you with the nitty-gritty, bit I'm personally well aware of the details of two teenagers who killed people in totally unrelated incidents, decades apart. One driving a boat way too fast when he hit another boater. The other under 18 driving a car, drunk, killed a passenger. Neither received significant punishment. Both are adults now (one in his 60s). And while I can't say what goes through their minds when nobody else is around, both give every outward appearance of not giving their actions another thought.
So a free pass, or close to it, because you don't want to ruin a third life doesn't seem right. Actions that egregious, no matter how young the perpetrator, have to have appropriate consequences. But locking a 16-year-old up for 30 years doesn't seem right either. So what is "appropriate"? I wish I knew.
I'll throw out two years in juvenile lockup -- gets him to 18. Then figure the cost to raise the Bramblett children to age 22, and 30% the driver's earnings to go to them until such time as the cost, plus interest at whatever replaces LIBOR + 2.5%, is repaid. If an insurance policy takes care of the cost to raise the Bramblett children, the restituton goes to reimburse the insurance company -- and I promise you, if they have a legal claim on the earnings, they will pursue him for the debt.
That keeps him out of hard core time. But it reminds him every day for a long time, of the impact of his actions.
Not perfect, I know. But I'd love to hear other ideas that both serve justice and keep a 16-year-old life from being effectively over.
