Mallard gets 50 years for windshield death
10 years assessed for evidence tampering
By Melody McDonald and Deanna Boyd
Fort Worth Star-Telegram
FORT WORTH _ Chante Mallard was sentenced this afternoon to 50 years in prison for hitting a homeless man on a freeway and then leaving him to die lodged in her windshield.
The jury that convicted her of murder in less than an hour Thursday deliberated about two hours and 45 minutes in recommending the punishment that Judge James Wilson accepted for the 27-year-old nurse's aide.
She also was sentenced to 10 years for her guilty plea for tampering with evidence. The sentence will run concurrently with the murder sentence.
Prosecutors in their closing arguments argued for the maximum life sentence while defense attorneys pleaded for compassion and mercy.
Prosecutor Christy Jack, who tried the case with Richard Alpert and Miles Brissette, urged jurors to sentence Mallard to the maximum, telling them that "killing Gregory Biggs was simply a bump in the road of her life."
She urged them not to buy into Mallard's claim that things would have been different had she not taken half a tablet of Ecstasy on that night in October 2001.
"It would be easy to say this was an Ecstasy-induced fluke; this was a one-time crime never to repeat itself," Jack said.
But what she did in the weeks and months after the killing spoke volumes, Jack said.
"She continued to drink, she continued to do drugs," Jack said. "Not just a little bit. All the time. Morning, noon and night she smoked dope. ... It was life as usual. When did she do the right thing? When did she call police? When did she do anything different? It was not the Ecstasy."
She asked the jury to imagine what Biggs was thinking as he lay in Mallard's car feeling the warm liquid of his blood.
"Do you think he wondered, 'What did I ever do in my whole life to deserve to die like this?'" Jack said.
In his final summation, defense attorney Jeff Kearney, who was working with Reagan Wynn, asked jurors not to give up on Mallard, but rather, administer "justice tempered with mercy."
He said Mallard was truly remorseful about her actions, accepted responsibility for killing Biggs and wanted to be punished.
He reminded jurors that she had been a good student and a hard worker who came from a supportive, loving family.
He said there is nothing in Mallard's background to suggest she would ever be a future danger to society.
"There is so much good left in her," Kearney said. "Yes, she did get off track in her life and, God knows, she is sorry for it."
He said the only dirt that prosecutors, with all of their power and money, could dig up on Mallard was that she smoked marijuana and drank.
"Smoking marijuana and possessing marijuana is a Class B Misdemeanor in this state," Kearney said, explaining that was only one step above a traffic ticket.
"There's a whole lot of people that we all know that have done that in their life and they're not horrible people," Kearney said.
Kearney reminded jurors about all of Mallard's family members, friends and acquaintances who testified that they were willing to look out for her and keep her life on track.
"I can tell you, and I think you know it, she will never, never, ever go down that path again," Kearney said. "She will not be in that situation again. She has so much support to catch her if you'll just let her be caught. Please don't destroy another life."
In his closing, prosecutor Alpert agreed that Mallard had a loving family who raised her well and with good values. But, he said, Mallard rejected them, entered a life of selfishness and almost got away with murder.
He told the jury to send a message so that no one will ever dare "gamble with another's life."
"Look within yourself and find the moral fiber that you have _ and she clearly lacks," Alpert said.
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