Bibb Co. judge, DA condemn criminals ‘wreaking havoc’ as Macon endures record violence
As he sentenced a convicted killer the other day, a Bibb County judge mentioned the area’s scourge of gun violence and offered words of warning to those responsible.
Judge Howard Z. Simms, a former prosecutor known for his stern yet homespun lectures from the bench that offer equal parts wisdom and admonishment to the guilty, said that with the coronavirus pandemic subsiding the county’s highest court was “back in business.”
The scene that played out there last Thursday evening offered a small window into the deep wounds and consequences that a wave of violence has unleashed here over the past half decade.
Since the beginning of 2016, there have been about 190 homicides in the county, roughly a third of them during the COVID-19 shutdown. The year 2020 saw a modern-day-high 51 slayings countywide.
The shooting death of Michael Chapman had been the county’s 31st homicide of 2018, and last week his accused killer went on trial.
Chapman was gunned down in what prosecutors have since said was fallout from an ongoing feud over parking space at the Houston Avenue housing project where Chapman lived.
His killer, Dequavious Jamal “D.J.” Howard Sr., 20, was convicted Thursday at the end of a four-day murder trial, the county’s first in 15 months.
Prosecutors asked the judge to sentence Howard to the maximum: life without parole.
‘Terror to evildoers’
Referring later to the toll inflicted by the county’s record bloodshed, Bibb County District Attorney Anita Reynolds Howard would, in an interview with The Telegraph, say that she does not take lightly the job her office faces ensuring public safety and bringing violent criminals to justice.
“We have folks who are wreaking havoc on this community,” she said. “I live by — and the folks in this office know that — Proverbs 21:15. And that says that when justice is done it brings joy to the righteous but terror to evildoers.”
She said that in her mind the judge’s sentencing of Dequavious Howard spoke directly to that verse.
In court last Thursday evening, after Dequavious Howard said, “No, sir,” when asked if he had anything to say, Judge Simms gestured to his right, to the rear of the courtroom, where Howard’s family sat.
The group of a dozen or so relatives — separated from Chapman’s kin by a few rows of benches — had been in court for much of the testimony. Some were sobbing.
“I want you to remember for the rest of your life how everybody on that side of this room is feeling right now,” the judge told Howard. “Mr. Chapman’s family will never see him again. Your family will never see you again outside of a prison.”
Dressed in a gray suit, his hands cuffed behind his back, Dequavious Howard stood stiff, silent, as Simms went on.
“You and you alone are responsible for all of the grief that comes with that,” the judge said. “You are responsible for every bit of anguish and agony that everybody on that side of the room feels, including your own family.”
Said Simms: “If I live to be 1,000 years old, I will never understand why it is that in this community we settle our differences with a gun. To a greater extent than I see in a lot of other places.”
Culture of violence
The judge said that for him the only good thing about the coronavirus crisis was that he “got a year off from having to sit in this room and look at dead bodies on (the courtroom television monitor) and look at young men at (the defense) table who had killed them.”
Simms said the heartbreak that a culture of violence has left in its wake is “depressing and it’s sad.”
“Two lives have been thrown away,” the judge went on as he peered down at the convicted young man. “Yours and Mr. Chapman’s. And two families will never be the same. All because of the choice that you made. And it’s a choice that way too many people make around here.”
Simms said the reason he was sentencing Howard, who turns 21 next month, to life in prison without the possibility of parole was that evidence showed Howard may have tried to influence a witness from jail.
On the eve of trial, a call was placed from the county lockup where Howard had been held since his arrest in November 2018 to the daughter of a key witness against him. The intention, prosecutors contended, was, in exchange for $3,000, to persuade the witness to take the stand and say Howard had not been present at the shooting scene despite having told investigators at the time that Howard was there. The call was recorded. Prosecutors played the recording for the jury.
“Son, it’s a sad day in this room — for everybody in it,” the judge began in his parting words to Howard.
“Sending you to the penitentiary may not stop the next guy or the one after that or the one after that. But word needs to get out. We’re back in business down here. ... I can’t stop other people from killing people, but I can stop you from doing it again in this town. And that’s what I aim to do.”