A Judge Was Asked for Mercy by the Victim’s Brother. He Granted It.

Mobile County Circuit Judge Vicki Davis sentenced Aubrey Aaron Pate to 15 years with all but three suspended for the reckless manslaughter death of Victor Birch, after the victim's brother asked the court for leniency and the prosecutor revised her recommendation downward.

By James Bullard

September 19, 2026 · 9:09 pm Updated October 31, 2026 6 min read

A Judge Was Asked for Mercy by the Victim's Brother. He Granted It.

MOBILE, Ala. — The man whose brother died in the crash stood up in a Mobile County courtroom and asked the judge to go easy on the driver who killed him.

By the time Erich Birch finished speaking, the prosecutor had revised her own recommendation downward, and the judge had heard enough to impose a sentence well below what the state had initially intended to seek.

The Sentence

Mobile County Circuit Judge Vicki Davis sentenced Aubrey Aaron Pate to 15 years in prison but suspended all but three years. She ordered the 27-year-old Wilmer resident to seek drug and alcohol treatment in prison and then serve three years on probation.

The sentence was less than the plea bargain prosecutors offered before the case went to trial last month. A jury found Pate guilty of reckless manslaughter.

What the Judge Said She Weighed

Davis said two things troubled her: the number of driving infractions Pate accumulated before the September 2022 crash that killed Victor Birch, and Pate’s own testimony about his marijuana use.

“For such a young man, your driving record is horrible. … You were very cavalier about how you used marijuana,” she said.

Prosecutors alleged Pate was drinking and using marijuana before the early-morning crash on the Industrial Canal bridge on Rangeline Road in September 2022.

‘We Are Not a Vengeful Family’

Erich Birch, a Mobile native who practices law in Texas, told the court the same thing the judge had noticed about the driving record — and then asked for leniency anyway.

“We don’t know you, but given your driving record, it was inevitable that you were going to hurt yourself or someone else, and that happened to be our Victor,” he said in court.

At the same time, he told Davis the family did not want to see Pate’s life ruined, and asked her to impose a sentence at the lower end of the range.

“We are not a vengeful family,” he said. “Any punishment you receive won’t make us feel better.”

Pate wept while Birch spoke. When his own turn came, he had trouble keeping his composure. Facing the family, he said: “I pray one day you can find peace in knowing he’s with God.”

The Prosecutor Changed Her Recommendation

Prosecutor Ashley Rich said she had planned to seek a 20-year prison sentence — the maximum.

After speaking with Birch’s family, she instead recommended the same sentence Pate would have received had he accepted the plea deal: 20 years with all but five suspended and five years’ probation.

“I feel it’s very necessary to extend grace,” she said.

The judge went below even that recommendation.

Victim Impact and the Sentencing Decision

Alabama law gives crime victims and their families the right to be heard at sentencing, and victim impact statements are a standard part of the proceeding.

Almost always, they are used to describe harm and to ask for accountability. A family using that opportunity to argue for leniency is the less common case, and judges are not bound by it — a sentencing court’s obligation runs to the public and to the statutory purposes of punishment, not solely to the victim’s family.

But a family’s stated wishes carry real weight in practice, particularly in a case where the harm is unquestioned and the disagreement is only about consequence. When the people most entitled to anger decline to press for it, the argument for a severe sentence loses its most compelling advocate.

What a Split Sentence Means

The structure Davis imposed — 15 years, all but three suspended, followed by three years’ probation — is a split sentence, a common form in Alabama.

Pate will serve the three-year term. The remaining 12 years hang over him: if he violates probation, a court can revoke the suspension and require him to serve some or all of the balance.

The treatment requirement is the substantive condition. Given the judge’s specific concern about substance use, ordering drug and alcohol treatment during incarceration addresses the factor she identified as central rather than simply extending the time served.

Reckless Manslaughter

Reckless manslaughter in Alabama is a Class B felony, carrying a sentencing range of two to 20 years.

The charge requires proof that a defendant recklessly caused another person’s death — that he was aware of and consciously disregarded a substantial and unjustifiable risk. It is the charge prosecutors bring in fatal crash cases where the conduct goes beyond ordinary negligence but the state does not allege intent to kill.

Victor Birch

Erich Birch, speaking outside the courtroom, described a brother whose working life and whose passion were separate things.

Victor Birch spent his whole career as a postal worker. His real passion was running, and he helped found the Blue Bell Bombers running group.

His brother said mercy was characteristic of him.

“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 don’t even know Mr. Pate. We do know he made bad decisions, and his bad decisions cost Victor’s life.”

The Defense

Defense attorney Jeff Deen said his client feels awful about what happened, and spoke about the family.

“I was very impressed with the brother, Mr. Birch,” Deen said. “He was a fine fella, and we certainly feel sorry for the family. Usually, families come here and want to string somebody up but (I was) really impressed with their Christian-like attitude towards everything.”

Four Years From Crash to Sentence

The crash occurred in September 2022. The sentencing came in September 2026.

Four years is not unusual for a felony case that goes to trial rather than resolving by plea. Investigation, forensic analysis, discovery, pretrial motions and court scheduling all consume time, and a defendant who rejects a plea offer waits for a trial date.

In this instance, the case that went to trial produced a sentence lighter than the offer the defendant turned down — an outcome driven not by the strength of the defense but by what the victim’s family asked the court to do.

Inside the trial that led to the verdict

The case went to trial in August, and the evidence jurors weighed was contested to the end. In closing arguments, then-state prosecutor Ashley Rich, the former Mobile County district attorney, told jurors that Pate gave three plasma samples at the hospital after the crash, and that testing on those samples showed he was under the influence of marijuana and alcohol, with a blood alcohol percentage of roughly 0.021 percent. The legal limit is 0.08.

Rich pointed to medical documents, body camera footage and crash reconstruction analysis as proof that Pate knowingly drove under the influence. One piece of the state’s case was a mobile video recording in which an officer arriving at the scene could be heard saying Pate was, in the officer’s words, “high as hell.”

Defense attorney Jeff Deen countered by playing a slowed-down copy of that same exchange, arguing the officer actually said Pate was “by himself.” Rich maintained the recording made the accusation clear either way, and told jurors a medic reported smelling ethanol after arriving and administering first aid. When Pate was asked at the scene whether he had been drinking, he acknowledged he had, though he said he did not know how much.

Deen urged jurors to discount that admission, arguing Pate was suffering a head injury and could not recall the crash or the events leading up to it. Rich rebutted that medical records showed no indication of head trauma or brain bleeding. A reconstruction video prepared for the state by an expert showed Pate’s vehicle swerving and crossing into the opposite lane for what prosecutors described as “a football field and a half.”

The defense leaned on crash data pulled from both vehicles, which indicated Birch was traveling around 62 miles per hour and Pate around 69 at impact. Deen argued the reconstruction was inaccurate and had been created nearly two years after the crash, and acknowledged Pate tested positive for alcohol and marijuana but argued both were used long enough before the drive that they posed no danger. He described Pate as a chronic medical marijuana user with a high tolerance, and argued jurors could not convict on the murder charge the state pursued, which required extreme indifference to human life. The jury ultimately convicted Pate of the lesser included offense of reckless manslaughter before Davis imposed the split sentence.