An Alabama judge has sentenced an 18-year-old in the car crash that killed Auburn University sports announcer Rod Bramblett and his wife in 2019, but the punishment was not made public because of the defendant’s age.
Johnston Edward Taylor, who was 16 when the crash happened, was sentenced Wednesday under what’s called youthful offender status, which is granted to defendants younger than 21 and typically brings less severe penalties than if a person had been convicted as an adult.
“At the time of the accident, the defendant was a 16-year-old teenager with no prior criminal history, who had smoked or used marijuana and had been diagnosed with marijuana use disorder,” Judge P.B. McLauchlin wrote in the order granting youthful offender status to Taylor. “None of this justifies what happened; however, it does lend itself to treatment as a youthful offender.”
Authorities alleged Taylor was driving about 90 mph in a 55 mph zone in Auburn on May 25, 2019, when he rear-ended a 2017 Toyota Highlander driven by Bramblett and his wife Paula. Taylor survived the crash without serious injury.
He was initially charged with two counts of reckless manslaughter in the deaths, but as a youthful offender would have only faced a maximum sentence of three years in prison.
“The sentence imposed was somewhere between a slap on the wrist and exacting a pound of flesh,” Taylor’s lawyer, Tommy Spina, told The Opelika-Auburn News, adding that he could not legally speak in depth about the case. “It was between those two extremes.”
Bramblett was the play-by-play announcer for Auburn, who received national recognition for his memorable call in the 2013 Iron Bowl when the Tigers ran back a missed field goal 109 yards to beat the Alabama Crimson Tide as time expired, with Bramblett exclaiming “Auburn’s gonna win the football game! Auburn’s gonna win the football game!”
He took over as the lead announcer for the Tigers following the 2003 death of previous announcer Jim Fyffe.
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