Juvenile charged with Arson

:(
Sometime in February 2006, I started a fire in my backyard...I was cooking something. Then bored. Then took a chopstick, placed it over the gas oven. It wasn't dangerous at the time..I let it cool to an ember. Then I did it again. And I'm 90% sure that when I took it outside, the chopstick was still just embers. So I took it outside, dug it into the ground, thinking that dirt and ember would kill each other, but it was a windy day on dry winter grass. It immediately spread about the size of a shoebox?

I had faith in the authorities so rather than killing it off myself, which I'm sure I could've, I went inside and called the police. The dispatcher took like 4 minutes -_- Yeah it spread pretty big. About half of my yard(though my yard is small since it's a crowded subdivision) And I walked back and forth, got a 'welcome carpet', extinguished some fires that were approaching my house. It got hot so I quit. Then back with a fire extinguisher and extinguished some more. Some neighbors said use the hose, but the one that was nearby melted..Yeah and after the firemen came, 3 yards were burned, a fourth with a fence got blackened...though it was minimal damage.

The other neighbors didn't care for charges, but one did..Initially it was a 1st degree arson charge, now a 3rd degree charge.. Just got a letter saying to arrive in court June 27.
Charged with 3rd degree arson to the boy that knowingly(I didn't on purpose) started a fire with $25 damage.
Any idea my punishment/advice?

Georgia BTW

Grass is fine now also.

You're being charged in juvenile court?

I'm assuming that's the case..
I had the papers yesterday but my mom has them now, consulting our lawyer.

It makes a big difference. You're likely to end up on probation either way, but avoiding an adult criminal conviction is a big deal.

Update, it's been almost/over a year.. My lawyer keeps getting late to court so judge delays and over and over again..I hope judge doesn't throw me in the slammer after a year of no fire burning..:D

When this is all over, file a complaint with the state bar.

Keep documentation.

A complaint? About what?

PS, they didn't give me my miranda rights, but I guess it's too late now?

PS, I want to give a statement of

"I know if I plead guilty, I would've been let off "easy", yet I'm still here wasting my mom's time for what? If you had any real proof that I intentionally started the fire, why is it just 3rd degree (even though the visual damage of 3 mini-yards burnt wasn't pretty:D I'm going to college, 1280 SAT, 3.8 GPA, top 15%, leave me in peace"

Can I do that or can I only answer judge's questions..:)

And I was in court..maybe October or December, the judge was rambling on how arson was intentional, and putting an embered chopstick into the ground was not exactly premeditated.. but that was before the trial and before I plead not guilty and yeah.. Probably a year now and still waiting:)

In another forum you state that you lied to the police about what happened. Getting mouthy in your statement to the judge is not only unlikely to change the judge's mind that this was a premeditated crime, it ups your chance of spending some time behind bars.

It also invites the judge to question why, if you're as bright as you seem to believe, you haven't read the arson statutes. If you do so, it should be pretty obvious why you're charged with third degree arson instead of first degree arson. (Hint: how many buildings, structures or vehicles did you burn?)