After deliberating three hours today, a Flagler County jury found Jevante Tyquan Hamilton guilty of manslaughter, not first degree murder, for selling the drugs that resulted in the overdose death of Timothy Davidson in August 2019.
The four-day trial before Circuit Judge Chris France was the first of its kind in Flagler County history. While half a dozen individuals who have been charged with murder for selling the drugs that caused deaths, all had so far pleaded out their cases, and all are serving relatively lengthy prison sentences. Hamilton is the first to take his case to trial.
Had he been convicted of the first-degree murder charge–a particular class of first degree murder related to the “unlawful distribution of a controlled substance”–he would have faced mandatory life in prison without parole. The manslaughter conviction exposes him to up to 30 years in prison when he is sentenced, with a mandatory minimum of 15 years to be served day for day, meaning that he will accrue no gain time, or time off for good behavior, for those 15 years. Sentencing has not been set.
The mandatory requirements result from the fact that he is a prison-release re-offender: this was his third felony conviction within 10 years.
Hamilton, 25, of Sheridan Road in Daytona Beach, faces more than half a dozen probation violation charges in Volusia, which also expose him to many years in prison. He was on probation when he sold Davidson the drugs that killed him.
Davidson was a resident of 2 Cole Court in Palm Coast, where he lived with his parents. Authorities were called early the morning of Aug. 24, 2019, when his father found him unresponsive. Deputies arrived, performed CPR, turned over rescue efforts to paramedics when they arrived, and attempts continued for about 20 minutes, to no avail. Less than 12 hours later, Hamilton was arrested on a drug charge.
Detectives at the time had seized Davidson’s phone that bore texts and indications that Hamilton had sold Davidson fentanyl, termed “Boi” or “boy” or white heroin, in the slang used by the dealer and his buyers. They arranged for an undercover buy. But it was not until October 2020 that Hamilton was indicted for murder for Davidson’s death, becoming at the time only the second person to face a murder charge for the death of a person by overdose. He’d been preceded in that regard by Joseph Colon, now serving 30 years in prison after a plea deal.
Hamilton was driving a white Mercedes hatchback when he pulled up to the area of the sting in Palm Coast. At trial he argued that he was at his apartment at Indigo Plantation in Daytona Beach when Davidson died.
The case was prosecuted by Assistant State Attorneys Jennifer Dunton and Mark Johnson. Hamilton was represented by Assistant Public defender Brian Smith.
Linda says
Have to wonder if this scum bag is the same person who sold my son the same thing in October of 2020 who also died the same way. My prayers go to out to the Davidson family. Losing a child is not easy but knowing that someone provided what took them is the hardest. Addiction is a terrible disease. You try to help but know they have to fight the demons. People like this make the outcome tragic.
Scott says
I’m very sorry for your loss. I pray 🙏 that his soul goes straight to heaven 🙏 amen
The Geode says
Maybe he should have killed somebody black. At least 3 overdose deaths and ZERO PRESS and ZERO FUCKS given. Reminds me of the crack epidemic that required arrest and incarceration versus the opioid epidemic that required sympathy and rehabilitation…
A.j says
Do you say that when the white punks kill Black Prople. Bufallo,Charleston, the lynching years White cops killing unarmed Bkack Folks. I guess it hurts you when Blacks kill Whites. The demonic white world we live in.
MikeM says
He was a drug dealer. He peddled his poison to any color that would buy it. The only color he liked was green and could care less if black or white dies from it. Also if the world you live in is demonic white, maybe you should look into going back to the land your ancestors came from. Obviously your world is only black and white. No gray in it .
Aj says
Did you think about going back to Europe? Oh I forgot they murdered the Natives. Try going back to your ancestry country. You are so bad, make me go back. Oh I forgot white Europeans can’t make African Americans do any thing anymore. Right, they lost that power. Oh I forgot the so called whites are the biggest losers. White man cant make Black man do anything anymore.
Mikem says
That was a long time ago AJ. My ancestors came from Italy as immigrants. They were probably descended from slaves in old Roman empire, 2000 years ago. There were hundreds of thousands of white slaves in Turkey in the 1800s enslaved by Muslim turks. Try reading a history book or maybe read some of the works of Thomas Sowell. He is black and tells it like it is. Blacks were not the only enslaved people in the world. Your prejudice is rising to the surface. I’m surprised you haven”t been censored yet for your anti white comments. Just remember that 13% of the population commits 70% of the crime. But liberal news agencies will not print that.
A.j says
Censored, in your head, I’m anti white. It is o.k. for black men to be killed by white men for nothing . Pr the color if their skin. They don’t go to jail most of them. Am I’m lying for speaking the way I feel about the white man and his dirty deeds. Am I’m wrong for speaking the truth. My forefathers would not dare speak against a white man, they were hung burnt bombed and despitfully discriminated against. I guess I can speak for them against the white man. If I’m lying censor me but I’m telling the truth. It was a long time ago, but the negative stigma 8s still here to stay. I’m black and it hurts me how the white man hung my forefathers because they wanted a better life. I will not shut my mouth. I will die speaking about the dirty deeds of the white man to my people. I will not shut my mouth and I will continue to vote against the white Repubs. If I go to jail for that so be it. I will speak up for my people against the white man. If I die doing
that so be it. I will not shut my mouth because of the white man. If I’m anti white this country hsve been anti black from day one.
Mikem says
Read your history AJ. It was Lincoln who freed your people. He was a republican. The dems were the party of slavery. The party of south used to be the dems. No more.
That is why there is a mass exodus of the north. The dems keep your people in the big cities with just enough of a handout to keep you there. They control you. Notice that you don’t here much about BLM anymore ? They cheated you and your people and all the white social warriors when its leaders rewarded themselves with those million dollar properties in California. Republicans in power reward us with opportunities Not money .
They give us the avenues to better ourselves if we so choose and if we have the will to work for our own betterment regardless of color. If we become self reliant we prosper. If we educate ourselves we prosper. There was a time up north when I believed in the democratic party. I watched them lie and cheat and take away one right after the other. They want to legislate equality without having to earn it. Respect gives you equality. Respect can only be earned it cannot be legislated. Watch Thomas Sowell on Youtube. He is a well respected and intellectual man. he may enlighten you about us white devils.
The Geode says
While you can name one, two, or maybe three incidents by name, I can name you at least TEN cities where this is happening RIGHT NOW! Unfortunately, it’s the people you excuse to do what they will until somebody white or Hispanic DARES try to infringe upon our rights to murder other black people. While you sit around waiting for somebody white to do something to a black person, I am busy trying to figure out why we are doing it to ourselves. You claim the world is run by demonic white people but without them, you would have been starved to death or living in a cardboard box. Let’s be real. YOU needed and depended on THEM – they don’t care if you exist and laugh at the thought of someone that needs them having the nerve to talk shit about them. You are their pet.
You are too dense to realize that I was talking about the inequalities of a white girl being sentenced to 3 years for drunkenly (or high) killing a man compared to the black man that is gonna get 25+ years for selling a “junkie” drugs. As far as I am concerned, the junkie had as much hand in his death as the dealer. But your comprehension isn’t that high and all you saw was black/white.
A.j says
Geode, I’m not dense, am not the white man’s pet. You say I can’t get along without the white man. Correct me if I’m wrong about what you said about me not being in a box without the white man. Did the white man survive without the work of the black slave. The white man enjoy the riches the bkack slave made for him. It goes both ways don’t think that the black just live because of the white man’s help. The black man should get something from the white man, my forefathers died in the fields of the white man making the white man rich. The white man hung my forefathers simply because my people wanted a better life. The white man hung them after they made the white man rich. You have the nerve to say I’m here because of the white man, a good way to make me feel smaller than the white man. The nerve to say I’m a pet of the white man. Thus is hoe the white man start sayings that make the bkacj man feel small and worthless, the nerve of you. You got some nerve. This is how the white man make the bkack man feel small and worthless, calling him a pet of the white man. To sum it up we need each other, the white man is no better than anybody else. We are in the same boat, one breath away from eternity.
The Geode says
My man, I am black. Nobody is greater or lesser than me. If the white man owes my forefathers, then my forefathers were owed something – not me. All I need is an opportunity to prove my value to be an asset that gets paid for my worth. I benefitted from “the white man”, as has YOU. If it wasn’t for the welfare system, where would you be? Think about that. I can’t be made to feel “less than” by white people because my life is better than most of theirs. There are more than TWICE poor white people than the entire population of blacks in this country. You would place the poor “rotten-toothed” coal digger on the same level as Bill Gates. That is your and other small-minded people’s fallacy. Everybody is not the same. Generalities and stereotypes are birth from the truth, but you people cannot delineate “some” (or even most) from “all”. Often you come here and “white this” and “white that” and unless you are independently wealthy (your grammar structure says you’re not), then YOU are forced to grovel to the very people in which you spew your vitriol. I would contend it’s that conflation of emotions that allows you to feel small and less than.
Hating people or affixing your problems to people that have absolutely nothing to do with your inner turmoil won’t be the solution. You say “we need each other”, so stop castigating the people you obviously “need”, because trust me, they DON’T need you…
BTW – don’t you EVER allow another man’s “words” to make you feel “small”. Do whatever it takes to feel good about yourself and KNOW that no matter whatever circumstances you happen to be in that you are MAN ENOUGH to break through. Once you do, you will discover that another man’s negative opinion of you ain’t worth the hot breath he used to say them with. Walk with your back straight and your head up…
A.j says
Geode we think different. Am I’m being blessed by the white man? Did the white man prosper from the backs of the black slaves.you are black and so am I, see we think different as we should. I still say the white men are crooks liars and killers.i just don’t like white people and they don’t like me. Life goes on and I will live and speak against the white man and his wrong doing.
feddy1 says
AJ, you stated “The black man should get something from the white man, my forefathers died in the fields of the white man making the white man rich”. So some of my ancestors fought for the north during the civil war and some died, does that entitle myself and family to get reparations for fighting for blacks freedom?
Scooter says
Well said the dealer doesn’t kill junkies, they kiled themselves!
Let him go!!!!
Timothy Patrick Welch says
Supplier providing to a customer… Its the American way.
Why do bars have parking lots? Lets hold all to the same standard.