It's Moore County versus Lee County in a juvenile court battle over what should happen to a high school basketball star with dreams of making it to the NBA.

Sixteen-year-old Damien Hussein Steadman has to watch from the bleachers as his Southern Lee Cavaliers win games without his help. He may be a whiz on the hardwood, but he is also a felon, according to a ruling issued last May by Moore County District Court Judge Don E. Creed Jr., after Creed accepted Steadman's guilty plea to the felony of possessing a firearm on the property of Pinehurst Elementary School.

The charges grew out of a blaze of gunfire that erupted at the school almost a year ago, in March 2007.

While court documents identify him only by the initials D.H.S., Steadman himself telephoned and agreed to an interview. He said he dreams of college and a career in the National Basketball Association. Basketball is the hope of his life.

"I want to go to college, maybe State or Wake Forest," he said. "Then, the NBA."

As early as the seventh grade, scouts pegged Steadman as a comer. The National Underclassmen Basketball Ratings put him 26th in the nation out of the class of 2010. This past year, he was regarded as the 48th-best point guard in the south.

That could all be over if the Moore County decision stays in place. A Sanford court changed it, but the state attorney general's office stepped in with an appeal that restored it. The youth's attorneys will try again, but for now he's off the team.

After accepting Steadman's guilty plea, Creed transferred all the files to Lee County, where Steadman lives. A state athletic association rule bars felons from high school sports, so lawyers went to court there to get the ruling changed to a non-felony finding. That started a county-county battle that may not be over yet.

Last March, Steadman and some friends had been playing a pickup game in the gym at Pinehurst Elementary with other teens from Moore County. A dispute followed, and somebody fired off a 9mm handgun in the parking lot, shooting out windows in a car and hitting a school bus.

Police collected six shell casings from the parking lot and brought charges in juvenile court, where Steadman said he fired the weapon, according to a signed admission statement. But Steadman later changed his story and said he wasn't really the one who had done the shooting. It was his cousin, he said, and he just "took the fall for his cousin, T.G.," according to documents filed by his attorneys.

"After I got in trouble, that is when I started going to church," Steadman said in his telephone interview. His life has changed, he said, and he has a cautionary word for other young people -- "if they get in trouble like I got in trouble."

His advice: Stay away from chancy situations.

"Be in the right place at the right time," he said. "Don't hang with people you know that, like, carry guns and stuff like that. There is no telling what is going to happen and how you're going to get blamed for it."

His grades are good, his game is good, his team is good. His aims are high, he says, but he's still off the court and out of play, with dreams dimming by the day. It wasn't Creed's original order that keeps him from playing ball. It's a state rule by the N.C. High School Athletic Association that bars anybody with a felony conviction from taking part in school athletic events.

Ruling Altered

The police report describes gunfire and shot-out car windows. An eyewitness to the shooting incident told investigators that the shooter got out of the rear seat of a gray car.

"Three suspects left the gym at Pinehurst Elementary School and shot six times at a vehicle in the parking lot and also hit a parked school bus," says the report, written immediately after the incident. "Suspects fled the scene and (are) suspected to be en route to Sanford."

Steadman's school board had no choice other than to declare him ineligible, according to Jimmy Love, attorney for the board. It didn't sit well with sports fans or with others interested in helping the young man.

"When all that happened, the school board declared Damien ineligible to play -- football or basketball, or anything else," said Love.

It wasn't entirely the end of the matter, though. A Lee County judge changed Creed's ruling, allowing Steadman to resume play -- for a while.

"A few weeks ago, I get a court order signed by a judge," Love said. "Basically, the judge had a rehearing, and they let Damien plead to a misdemeanor and declared he was eligible to play basketball."

Attorneys James R. Van Camp, William M. Van O'Linda Jr. and Robert Reives had brought the boy's case to a court in Lee County, where changes were made so Steadman could return to the basketball court.

"Van Camp did something down there (in Moore County)," Love said. "Somebody did something up here."

Complicated Case

The whole thing has been complicated. Juvenile proceedings differ from those in adult court, according to Janet Mason of the N.C. School of Government. Instead of a verdict, there is an "adjudication," and a "disposition" takes the place of a sentence. While the findings of juvenile court are officially sealed (Steadman was 15 at the time), later documents in the case identifying him by name were made public.

"Adjudication is like a finding of fact," Mason says. "Did this juvenile do the thing that he is accused of doing? A disposition is comparable to a sentence: 'OK, we have the adjudication; we know what the kid did. What are we going to do about it?' At that point, juvenile court looks really, really different from adult court. The disposition is simply what the court is going to do about it, once the factual finding has been made that he committed the offense 'beyond a reasonable doubt.' That's why the disposition makes more sense to happen where the juvenile lives."

Superior Court Judge Addie Rawls found that Steadman's original disposition said he could play sports -- though he could not, because school policy forbade it. She changed "felony" to "misdemeanor" by amending the original offense (bringing a firearm onto school property) to a charge of assault with a deadly weapon.

"The dispositional order set forth that the child was to participate in school-sponsored athletic events," her order said. "Under the current disposition, the child is excluded due to North Carolina school policy."

Outside School Jurisdiction

Rawls modified the adjudication so it would match the original disposition, in effect making the verdict match the sentence.

"The charge in the dispositional order is amended to read assault with a deadly weapon a Class A1 misdemeanor," her order says. "All other parts of the dispositional order remain as previously ordered. The child remains under supervision as previously ordered."

That ultimately had no effect. The Court of Appeals agreed with the state that Rawls had no jurisdiction to change the charge to something not in the original petition.

People in law enforcement familiar with the case feel strongly that taking it out of county is wrong. Cases have to be tried where crimes were committed, they say.

Courts have the ultimate say as far as Moore County schools are concerned, says Superintendent Susan Purser.

"I think it is really a matter that is outside the schools at this stage," Purser said. "I think it is what the court decides is appropriate for the student. We deal with what the court decides. It is outside the domain of the school system. The action of the courts is separate and apart from the operation of the schools, and we act as parallel organizations. This is really a case to be decided outside of us. At this stage, it is not really a school issue."

But which court's decision prevails?

Van Camp first filed a motion in Moore County to vacate the original order, but he was later told that Creed had ordered "the entire legal file" transferred to Lee County where Steadman lived and he would have to file there, according to court documents.

That's why, in November, Van Camp and a young associate, William Miles Van O'Linda Jr., filed with the District Court of Lee County. That resulted in Rawls' new ruling, but then the Appeals Court vacated her order, making Steadman a felon once more and off the team.

You can't make that kind of change, the Appeals Court said. Rawls did not have jurisdiction to change it to something "not in the petition."

Juveniles are not "indicted" as a rule. A "petition in delinquency" is filed alleging an offense. In Steadman's case, the petition never alleged that he committed an assault of the kind in the Sanford court's changed adjudication.

The Appeals Court ruling did not say Sanford had no jurisdiction to hear the matter, or to change the adjudication -- only that it did not have jurisdiction to make the change it did. Steadman's lawyers will make another try at putting their athletically talented client back in play. They may or may not take the case back to Sanford, but they think there may be some action that will pass muster.

Contact John Chappell at 783-5841 or by e-mail at jchappell@thepilot.com.