Yeah, you bring up a very real and serious issue, two really.
The first is juvenile courts, and when they should be used, and when they shouldn't (as 15 year-olds and younger, I'm sure, have been tried as adults in some cases). What is "the line" that you use to differentiate who is a child, who is not fully responsible for their actions because they have not completely developed, and who is an adult, who is developed and who is responsible for their actions?
The best answer I have is also a very unsatisfying one: I don't know.
The second was their having to register as sex offenders, and combined with a minimal jail time sentence, makes their punishment very...I can't think of the word I want. Like chaotic. They're almost contradictory. So we ended up with this kind of unhappy middle ground where no one is really satisfied, I feel like.
I get that is was a juvenile court that did the sentencing, but the whole system makes no sense. Juvenile sentences rarely extend into adulthood ("blended sentencing") so we have a system where a 16-year old gets nearly no jail time where someone who could be just 13 months older may spend over 10 years in jail for the same crime. These two got almost no punishment in terms of jail time except that they will have to register as a sex offender for life. The system didn't work for anyone in this case. The rapists got almost no immediate punishment, but will never be able to "serve their time" and rejoin society because they will never be able to shed the stigma (and social/employment problems) of being a sex offender for life.
I agree with you with all the emotional appeal garbage in the article was pointless.