A Mobile jury found Aubrey Pate guilty of reckless manslaughter for the 2022 death of Victor Birch — and, in the weeks since, a judge has sentenced the 26-year-old to prison for the crash that took the life of one of Mobile’s best-known runners.
According to a statement from District Attorney Keith Blackwood, the jury returned the verdict on a Friday afternoon after prosecutor Ashley Rich and defense attorney Jeff Deen delivered closing arguments earlier in the day.
The Crash
Prosecutors said Pate was under the influence of alcohol and marijuana when he drove his pickup truck into oncoming traffic and crashed head-on into Birch’s vehicle near the Industrial Canal Bridge on Rangeline Road. Birch was killed in the crash, which occurred on the morning of Sept. 25, 2022, as Birch drove to train for an upcoming Ironman triathlon.
Because Pate decided to drive in such a state, the district attorney’s statement said, he demonstrated an extreme indifference for human life. The jury weighed the more serious charge of extreme indifference murder that prosecutors suggested in closing arguments, but ultimately found Pate guilty of the lesser charge of reckless manslaughter.
Birch was 61 years old and had worked for years as a postal worker. He was a beloved member of Mobile’s running community, a fixture of the local road-racing scene whose daily training runs made him a familiar figure on the city’s streets. His death sent a ripple through that community, where runners honored him in the weeks that followed.
“This case is a devastating reminder that choosing to drive after consuming alcohol and drugs can have irreversible consequences,” Blackwood said in a statement. “Victor Birch did nothing wrong. He was simply driving down the road when his life was taken because of the reckless decisions of another person. A jury has held Aubrey Pate accountable for those decisions and for the life that was lost as a result.”
The Verdict
The jury’s choice of reckless manslaughter over murder reflected the distinction at the heart of the case. Prosecutors argued that Pate’s decision to drive intoxicated, followed by a head-on collision, demonstrated an extreme indifference to human life — the mental state required for the murder charge. The defense countered that the crash, however tragic, did not meet that standard. After deliberating for roughly 90 minutes, the jury settled on reckless manslaughter, which targets the conscious disregard of a substantial and unjustifiable risk.
The distinction matters at sentencing. Extreme indifference murder in Alabama carries a potential sentence of 20 years to life; reckless manslaughter carries a maximum of 20 years but allows judges far more flexibility — a difference that shaped the sentencing hearing that followed.
The Sentence
Pate was sentenced on Friday, Sept. 18, in a hearing where Birch’s family asked the court for mercy. Mobile County Circuit Judge Vicki Davis sentenced Pate to 15 years in prison but suspended all but three years, ordering the now-27-year-old Wilmer resident to complete drug and alcohol treatment in prison and then serve three years of probation.
The sentence was less than what prosecutors initially sought — and less than the plea bargain prosecutors had offered before the case went to trial. After speaking with Birch’s family, the prosecutor recommended the same sentence Pate would have received under the plea deal: 20 years with all but five years suspended, plus probation. Davis said she found it necessary to extend grace.
The judge also said she was troubled by the driving infractions Pate had accumulated before the crash and by his testimony regarding his marijuana use, remarks that underscored the gap between the verdict and the sentence: accountability imposed, tempered by a family’s explicit request for mercy.
Erich Birch, Victor Birch’s brother, a Mobile native who practices law in Texas, spoke outside the courtroom after the sentencing, saying his brother had worked his whole career as a postal worker and was “all about mercy.”
“Victor Birch really had nothing but good thoughts and love for other people,” he said. “He cared about other people. He wanted to do good things for other people. We had nothing bad to think about Mr. Pate. We do know he made bad decisions, and his bad decisions cost Victor’s life.”
Defense attorney Jeff Deen said his client feels awful about what happened and that his remorse was genuine.
A Case That Resonated
The case struck a nerve in Mobile for reasons beyond the tragedy itself. Birch was not a public official or a celebrity — he was a mail carrier and a runner, someone whose generosity and decency became the story his family and friends told in court. The image of a man killed on his way to train for an endurance event, struck by a driver crossing the centerline at 6:22 a.m. on Rangeline Road, crystallized for many residents the arbitrary nature of impaired driving.
The verdict and sentence also close one of the more closely watched Mobile County prosecutions of the year. Prosecutors presented evidence of Pate’s condition in the moments after the crash, including statements he made to the first officer on the scene and a medical report documenting the smell of alcohol; the defense challenged the officer’s characterization and played a slowed recording of the exchange during closing arguments. The jury weighed it all in less than two hours.
With sentencing complete, Pate begins his sentence — and Mobile’s running community, which lost one of its most familiar figures on a September morning in 2022, finally has the legal resolution it has waited three years to hear.