Jonathan Taylor has been dismissed from the team at Alabama, and right now that’s the least of his problems.
Even though the former Georgia defensive tackle has been long gone from Athens – he was kicked off the team last summer — his legal issues here have yet to be resolved. Taylor currently has two cases pending against him in the Athens-Clarke County court system, and neither one has been adjudicated, according to his attorney.
One is a felony case of aggravated assault/family violence. The other is a misdemeanor case of theft by deception. Both cases followed arrests in 2014. Taylor was terminated from a pretrial diversion program in the theft case as a result of the family violence charge last summer. He was subsequently dismissed from UGA by coach Mark Richt last July.
Since then, Taylor attended a junior college in Mississippi and was accepted into the University of Alabama on a football scholarship in January. He was arrested again this past Saturday night in Tuscaloosa. The charges this time are domestic violence/third degree assault and domestic violence/third degree criminal mischief.
Suffice it to say, this doesn’t help his situation in Athens.
“My hope is that the accusations in Tuscaloosa aren’t true and they won’t have any affect here,” said Kim Stephens, a criminal defense attorney in Athens who is representing Taylor in both cases. “My hope is it doesn’t hurt (the case), but it definitely doesn’t help it. Obviously, it’s concerning.”
Stephens hadn’t spoken to his client as of late Sunday evening but planned to on Monday. Legally, evidence in a new case against a defendant can be utilized in another case that has yet to be tried.
Several factors have slowed the wheels of justice for Taylor in Athens. After his pretrial diversion status was revoked in the misdemeanor theft case, it has to be prosecuted anew. And with Taylor in Tuscaloosa trying to resurrect his football career, Stephens has been delaying status conferences until his client was cleared of school and football responsibilities so he could attend to them.
As for the felony family-violence case, it had to go back before the grand jury in February due to some legal technicalities. Taylor came out of that exercise facing one felony rather than two, but the one charge potentially has more teeth legally. The state of Georgia adopted legislation this past year that makes the act of choking or strangling during a domestic violence attack a much more serious offense.
The 6-foot-4, 335-pound Taylor is accused of choking his victim in the Athens case. According to Tuscaloosa police, Taylor’s 24-year-old female victim had “minor injuries to her neck from the assault” this past Saturday.
That has put Alabama, which went to great lengths to defend Taylor’s admission, at considerable legal risk. Taylor was dismissed by the Crimson Tide on Sunday, and it’s likely the university will take similar steps this week.
“This will still need to go through the legal process, but when he was given an opportunity here, it was under strict guidelines and we made it clear there was a zero tolerance policy,” Alabama coach Nick Saban said in a statement Sunday.
Stephens, a UGA football letterman (1984-87) who has represented several Georgia players facing misdemeanor offenses, said it’s important not to “jump to conclusions” and “assume guilt” for Taylor.
“Any time somebody is charged with domestic violence, whether it be a man or a woman, it’s a terrible situation,” he said. “People tend to make quick conclusions and that’s a concern I have. … When somebody is a celebrity or a sports personality, and people have read about previous accusations against them, it’s easy for somebody else to make the same accusation against them. The conditions are ripe for false accusations to be made and people tend to jump to the conclusion that they’re guilty, even though they haven’t been tried for any of the claims that have been made.”
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