Miller was obviously a despicable human as a child and into his early teens. Maybe even a bit beyond that as the judge had to mandate an apology and stated Miller's apology wasn't sincere. He was probably a bullying, racist, entitled little pr!ck.
But what's important to me, and it's info not at my disposal, is what he has done and how much he has changed and reformed since that mandated apology. If he has changed and reformed that is. There's conflicting reports of different apologies he has provided and the statement from the victims parents that Miller still has never actually apologized. So that kinda puts things back at square one.
If I were Sweeney and Neely, I would have done some serious investigation work on Miller before signing him. I would have interview former high school teachers, his former guidance counselor, fellow students, his coach in high school, people associated with his team, people at UND, it's coach, people he came into contact with there and an in depth interview with his parents(see if the apple doesn't fall far from the tree and ascertain where the racism came from as this could be important if it's even possible for him to change given the family dynamic). I also would have sent him for a psych eval.
If the Bs got all thumbs up that Miller had indeed changed as a person, only then would I have signed him and I would have provided all that info to the Bruins locker room team leaders, coach Montgomery and Bettman in the NHL headquarters.
Not sure Sweeney and Neely did any of that. I have no info on what he is like now as a very young adult, so it's hard to determine if the Bs front office screwed up or not.
As for Miller and what's fair. He did some horrendous racist bullying to a special needs kid and was arrested and convicted in juvenile court just six years ago when this type of behavior had already come under social scrutiny and had been determined by society to be seriously unacceptable to the point of being worthy of being cancelled by it. This wasn't something that happened in the 80's, 90's or early 00's. This happened a very short time ago. Patrice Bergeron was already over 30, a Bruins team assistant captain and a Stanley Cup champion when this all went down, to put into perspective just how little time has passed since Miller was found guilty of his actions.
Can an immature teenager change and reform enough to be trusted to work at the highest level of hockey in such a short period of time? I know almost all the complete jerks I knew as a child and teenager were still complete jerks at 20 years old. And I know absolutely no kids who were racists at 12,13,14 years old that had stopped being racists by the time they were 20. Erasing racism from one's system during you developmental teen years if racism is alive and well in the home you live in, is extremely improbable, though not impossible.
A bad move by Sweeney and Neely to get involved with Miller, but they've screwed the pouch on recent drafts and need an influx of young talent, so they took a shot with Miller. Whatever. We will see how this plays out, but I am not expecting to see Miller sporting the spoked B anytime soon, if at all.