Senior Judge Tom Davis has thrown out the criminal indictment against three former Calhoun High School seniors, blasting prosecutors as "grossly negligent" in their handling of a sex-assault case stemming from a 2014 prom party in Gilmer County. The decision, issued Thursday on the 12th anniversary of the alleged incident, ends a long-running legal saga that kept the men on bond for years. Davis ruled that repeated discovery failures and long stretches of inactivity had violated the defendants' constitutional right to a speedy trial.
In his written order, Davis said the state's pattern of delay and piecemeal evidence disclosures made a fair trial impossible and described the prosecution's conduct as "uncommonly long" and "grossly negligent," according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. The judge also wrote that the alleged victim, who was 18 at the time of the party, was effectively "denied her chance to be heard" by the dismissal. Prosecutors argued that turnover among lawyers and judges, limited resources and the pandemic contributed to the delay, but Davis concluded that much of the inaction could have been avoided.
The charges stretch back to an after-prom gathering in May 2014 at a rental cabin in Gilmer County, where an 18-year-old woman reported she had been sexually assaulted, according to contemporaneous reporting by WSB-TV. A grand jury later that summer indicted Fields Chapman, Andrew Haynes and Damon "Avery" Johnson on charges that included aggravated sexual battery. Investigators conducted dozens of interviews, and the case spawned multiple indictments, motions and pretrial appeals that dragged on for more than a decade.
Davis noted that the case had been reassigned to several judges over the years and that at least two figures connected to the matter, a judge and an attorney, died while it was still pending. Prosecutors were still turning over evidence in 2025, the order said, according to the AJC. "There were several years when no action was scheduled and nothing was accomplished," the ruling stated. Defense attorneys told the court that the drawn-out proceedings cost the defendants college admissions and scholarships, disrupted work and education plans and inflicted years of anxiety and reputational damage.
What dismissal means under Georgia law
Under Georgia law, dismissing a case for violating speedy-trial rules can function as a final judgment that blocks prosecutors from bringing the charges again in many situations. The state's speedy-trial statute and Georgia precedent treat dismissal as the primary remedy in extreme cases. See OCGA § 17-7-170 on Justia and Sosniak v. State on FindLaw for how Georgia courts have approached speedy-trial dismissals. That framework means Davis's ruling could be the last word unless the state wins on appeal.
Next steps
It is not yet known whether state prosecutors will ask an appellate court to bring the charges back. Georgia law allows the state to appeal final orders that dismiss indictments, so a challenge to Davis's reasoning remains on the table. For now, the three defendants no longer face a pending criminal indictment, although civil litigation and ongoing reputational fallout from the 2014 allegations continue to loom over the case.
For north Georgia residents who followed every twist, the dismissal closes a major chapter in a case that once fueled intense debate over how the justice system treats sexual-assault claims. Appellate judges will decide whether Davis's order survives or gets reversed, but at this point the criminal case has been tossed after 12 years of stop-and-start litigation.
