A former McClellan High School football coach who killed one friend and maimed a second in a drunken-driving crash was sentenced to 10 years' probation Thursday after his friends, among them former NFL player Keith Jackson, and the dead man's family testified to his good works as a mentor to generations of young men.
"To send him to jail might compound this tragedy," said Pulaski County Circuit Judge Chris Piazza. "I've got the feeling this won't happen again."
The judge also imposed a $1,000 fine and ordered 49-year-old Anthony Chambers to complete 100 hours of community service.
Defense attorney Ron Davis called on a courtroom full of character witnesses on Chambers' behalf, including several young men whom Chambers had mentored in his educational career. Davis called Chambers a man who has changed lives for the better as a University of Arkansas at Fayetteville football player, a coach and a teacher.
He asked the judge for a sentence that would allow Chambers to avoid prison and continue working with young men. Chambers could show them how "a life filled with positive things can take a tragic turn through negative influences," Davis said.
"There is good in Anthony Chambers," Davis told the judge. "He has committed a crime, but he is not a criminal."
Charged with negligent homicide and first-degree battery, Chambers was arrested about eight months after the August 2012 crash in the 29000 block of Kanis Road that killed 50-year-old Timothy Leron Hester, a Little Rock father of two, and inflicted head injuries on fellow passenger Ricky Allen Franklin of Little Rock. Court records show Chambers had a blood-alcohol level of 0.25, more than three times the legal limit of 0.08.
Chambers pleaded no contest last month to the charges, which carried a potential sentence of 30 years in prison, in an arrangement with prosecutors to leave the sentencing decision up to the judge.
Prosecutor Jill Kamps showed photographs of Chambers' crashed 2005 Ford Mustang to the judge, but did not offer a punishment recommendation.
She asked the judge to consider how seriously Franklin, 47, was hurt in the crash. He and his family declined to testify, but Kamps said he spent months in the hospital with brain damage, had to relearn how to walk and still suffers short-term memory loss. Two other passengers, Coretta Gay and Clifton Page, were not seriously injured.
She said the witness to the crash, Dakota Welsh, called police after seeing Chambers run a stop sign at Kanis Road and Ferndale Cutoff and weave across traffic lanes before veering off the road to collide with a utility pole, without braking. The vehicle hit two poles, breaking both of them, according to a court report.
Speaking on behalf of the Hester family, Pamela Lucas told the judge her family still misses her brother, one of six siblings. She said her brother wouldn't want Chambers, a longtime family friend, to go to prison when he could instead continue his good works in the community.
"We miss him every day. We hate that what happened happened," she said. "But God has a way of doing things. We don't hold any real animosity. I want to see him get his life back on track. He seems like he done changed."
Endorsing probation for Chambers were Arkansas Sports Hall of Fame coach Charles Ripley, fellow McClellan teacher Nancy Settles and the defendant's childhood friends, James Rouse and Jackson.
Both Rouse, who played Razorback football with Chambers, and Jackson -- who played for the Philadelphia Eagles, Miami Dolphins and Green Bay Packers and now leads the Positive Atmosphere Reaches Kids organization -- told the judge they would not have come to court if they didn't believe in Chambers.
Both said they would stake their personal reputations on his continuing good behavior.
"I wouldn't be here for anyone else," Jackson told the judge. "If he would have to go to jail, it would hurt so many people. He's a mentor and so many people look up to him"
"I looked up to [Chambers], a great guy who has done a lot for the community," Rouse testified. "His faith is back."
Former student Brad Silas, a Little Rock detective, called Chambers a "mentor" who made personal sacrifices to help his students.
"I've watched him change people's lives," Silas testified. "I watched him take money out of his own pocket to feed people."
Chambers' girlfriend, attorney Tonya Floyd, told the judge he lives in daily "anguish" over what he has done but has worked hard to live up to his Christian ideals.
"He is a man of honor. He is a man of character. He is a man of God," she said. "Anthony walks the walk he talks."
They've been together since shortly after Hester was killed, and she has never known Chambers to drink, Floyd said. He regularly attends Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, using the gatherings to encourage others to embrace faith, she said.
Chambers told the judge he has almost no memory of the crash that occurred a day after he resigned from McClellan after nine years there. He said he'd been depressed for several weeks about leaving the position and had spent that morning drinking Jack Daniels whiskey, but had gone to bed by noon to sleep off the effects of the alcohol.
Hester had come to his house to try to cheer him up, Chambers told the judge. He said they went out together about 6 p.m., about 10 hours before the crash, with Hester driving and he again drinking Jack Daniels.
Chambers said he had to be told that he took over driving when some of the others in the car had started arguing and he decided he wanted to go home.
Sheriff's deputies reported that Chambers appeared to be having a hard time staying awake as they questioned him after the crash and that he didn't know where he was. On Thursday, Chambers blamed his condition on mixing the medication he was taking for depression with the whiskey.
He choked up when he described his passion for teaching, acknowledging that his conviction would likely keep him from ever coaching again. He told the judge that no matter what sentence was imposed, he would continue working with youths.
"My calling was in education," he said, saying the most rewarding part was "seeing [students] grow up and become men."
Metro on 07/11/2014