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Jury gives man 40 years for making meth
Published Sunday,
August 22, 2004
By Brian Knox
A Springtown man was sentenced to 40 years in jail on
drug charges by a Wise County
jury Wednesday.
Damon Chapman, 43, who lives on Luke Road
in South Wise
County, was found guilty of
intent to manufacture methamphetamine and possession of methamphetamine. He
was sentenced to 40 years on the manufacturing charge and 20 years on the
possession charge. The sentences will run concurrently.
Chapman will not be eligible for parole for 10 years.
In addition, the jury imposed a $125,000 fine for the manufacturing charge
and a $10,000 fine for the possession charge.
The trial began Tuesday in 271st District Court in Decatur.
District Attorney Jana Jones and Assistant District Attorney Allen
Williamson prosecuted the case and said they were pleased with the jury’s
verdict.
“It’s significant they gave him a large amount of time,” Jones said. “They
hit him hard on the fine — you don’t always see that.”
Wise County Sheriff’s Deputy Chad Lanier testified Tuesday that officers
discovered a working meth lab in a barn when they
arrived at Chapman’s home around 3 a.m. Oct. 16 of last year to serve him
with a felony arrest warrant for aggravated assault.
Lanier said that as officers walked around the home, they could hear items
being poured into the sink and could hear someone flushing the toilet. He
said he could also smell a strong chemical odor. About three minutes after
officers knocked on the door, Chapman opened the
door and was placed under arrest.
Officers also noticed that the items being flushed down the toilet were not
making it very far.
“When they would flush, you could hear water hitting the ground,” Lanier
said. “At the end of the pipe were 13 clear
baggies, some opened and some still had meth
inside.”
Two other people in the home, Hollie Dennis and
Daniel Hardin, were arrested on charges of possession of a controlled
substance and tampering with evidence. Hardin remains in jail with a bond
of $75,000 while Dennis posted bond and has been released. Jones said those
cases are still pending.
Chapman’s defense attorneys, David Singleton and Paul Belew,
questioned whether officers had done a thorough job of collecting evidence
and questioning potential witnesses on the night of the arrest. Belew said that with at least two other buildings on
the property where people were living, the prosecution had failed to prove
Chapman was the person making the methamphetamine.
“There is no evidence that links Mr. Chapman to the methamphetamine inside
the house or in that barn,” Belew said in his
closing argument.
The jury obviously disagreed, returning a guilty verdict in less than two
hours.
During the punishment phase of the trial, jurors learned that after Chapman
had posted bond, he was arrested again June 30 on possession of chemicals
with intent to manufacture a controlled substance.
Chapman faced punishment with a range of 15 to 99 years or life.
Jones and Williamson said the amount of methamphetamine – whether it was
the finished product or just the ingredients – seized from the barn and
home totaled over 2,000 grams and had a street value of over $20,000.
Jones said she hopes the sentence will be a deterrent to others who would
try to sell drugs in Wise County.
“I think the jury did send a message to people who are going to sell dope
in this county,” she said. “We can use this as a benchmark. I think (the
jury) was offended that someone would do this in our county and send drugs
out in our county.”
Wise County
juries have not seen many methamphetamine manufacturing cases. Jones said
she had never tried a methamphetamine manufacturing case before a Wise
County jury, and Barry Green,
who was district attorney for eight years from 1992 to 2000, said he also
never tried a methamphetamine manufacturing case during his administration.
Jones said one of the reasons the manufacturing charge is so rare is
because the chemicals and supplies needed to produce methamphetamine are
very common and can be quickly disposed of before they can be confiscated
as evidence.
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