MOBILE, Ala. — The Wilmer man on trial in the 2022 death of a Mobile postal worker testified in his own defense Wednesday, telling jurors he had used alcohol and marijuana in the days before the fatal crash but maintaining that he was not impaired when he got behind the wheel.
Aubrey Aaron Pate, 26, faces a reckless murder charge stemming from a head-on collision on the bridge over the Industrial Canal on Rangeline Road early on Sept. 25, 2022. The crash killed Victor Birch, a well-known postal worker who was active in a local running group.
Pate testified that he and two friends shared a single marijuana joint two days before the crash, and that the night before, he had one beer. His defense team argues the amount of drugs and alcohol in his system was far too small to have affected his driving.
Toxicologist Estimates Blood Alcohol Content
Dr. Curt Harper, a toxicologist with the Alabama Department of Forensic Sciences, testified that the state’s official lab report did not detect alcohol in Pate’s system. However, Harper said he used a separate calculation method applied to a blood sample drawn hours later at the hospital, working backward to estimate how much alcohol Pate’s body would have already metabolized. Based on that method, Harper placed Pate’s blood alcohol content at the time of the crash between .05 and .095.
Harper also testified he agreed with the findings of fellow state forensic analyst Michael Weaver, who previously told jurors that three different components of marijuana were found in Pate’s system.
“It is my opinion there are indicators displayed in his system of impairment that was caused by alcohol and cannabinoids,” Harper testified.
Crash Reconstruction Expert Describes High Speed, Late Braking
Ronnie Redding, a former Alabama state trooper who now runs a crash-reconstruction consulting business, testified that data pulled from the pickup truck’s event data recorder — commonly known as a “black box” — showed Pate traveling between 77 and 81 mph before the crash, and that he did not brake until roughly half a second before impact.
Redding created an animation for jurors illustrating how he believes the two vehicles collided. “He did a lane change, with the pickup carrying into the northbound lane for 3.5 seconds, and then he swerved,” Redding testified.
On cross-examination, defense attorney Michael Hickman challenged the accuracy of the animation, noting that it depicts flat, open terrain even though the crash occurred on a bridge. Hickman also confronted Redding with testimony he gave at a pretrial hearing, in which he said the pickup truck had been in its “normal lane” before the crash, contradicting his trial testimony about a lane change already underway.
“It’s there in black and white,” Hickman said, showing Redding a transcript of the earlier testimony.
Redding acknowledged the discrepancy. “I misspoke,” he said. “It was not in its normal lane. In fact, it was in the midst of its lane-change maneuver.”
The trial, which opened earlier this week in Mobile County, is expected to continue with additional testimony as prosecutors and defense attorneys present their full case to jurors.