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Randall Miller, the director of the canceled Gregg Allman biopic Midnight Rider, recently reflected on the tragic on-set accident that happened in 2014. In an interview with The Wrap on April 14, Miller refuted the allegations that the team lacked permission to film on the train lines before the collision that claimed camera assistant Sarah Jones' life.
Talking further about the same, Miller stated that he did not feel he had done anything wrong in the immediate aftermath of the tragedy. He then added:
“Obviously, I still feel bad that this horrible thing happened but it wasn’t like I caused that.”
Miller also claimed that the tragedy was caused by several factors, including the possibility that a part of his team made a mistake and that the production team had made a "wrong assessment." However, he claimed that he could clearly sense the story settling around Miller's portrayal as a "hard-driving director."
After entering a guilty plea to involuntary manslaughter and criminal trespassing in relation to the death of camera assistant Sarah Jones during the Midnight Rider filming, Randall Miller was sentenced to 10 years of probation. Miller's sentence also included a year in prison.
For the unversed, when the crew was filming on a train bridge in 2014, Jones was hit and killed by an oncoming goods train on the site.
All about Randall Miller’s case regarding Sarah Jones' death
Sarah Jones was killed and six other crew members were injured when the goods train unexpectedly arrived on the bridge on February 20, 2014, while filming a scene on an active railway line in Wayne County, Georgia. The train also hit several filming items and equipment that were left on the track as it was moving at almost 60 mph.
Randall Miller and other crew members were charged after investigations showed that the production allegedly lacked the necessary authorization to be on the rail line. Miller entered a guilty plea to the charges in March 2015 and was given a 10-year sentence, which included nine years of probation and one year in jail.
He ultimately served 382 days in prison and was released on March 23, 2016. While on probation, he was not allowed to work on a movie set in any position that required him to be responsible for other people's safety. Miller was also prohibited from serving as a director or holding any other position on set where he would have been in control of safety.
Under Georgia's First Offender Act, which permits some first-time offenders to have their records wiped upon successfully completing their term, Randall Miller’s conviction was cleared once he completed his probation, as reported by The Wrap on March 14, 2025.
Meanwhile, as per Variety’s September 2022 report, Randall Miller reportedly requested an early probation termination from a Georgia appeals court. Previously, in 2020, prosecutors had requested that Miller's probation be revoked after finding out that he had filmed a new movie called Higher Grounds.
Anthony Harrison, the case's judge, forewarned Randall Miller not to create any more films for the remainder of his probation but declined to put him back in jail.
The following year, in accordance with a 2017 criminal justice reform law that lowered probationary sentences for first-time offenders who had shown good behavior, the state probation office requested that Miller's probation be ended early. However, in January 2022, Harrison turned down that motion, stating that the Miller's case had "unique circumstances."
This Monday, April 14, Randall Miller received a court order to have his conviction cleared from his record under the Georgia First Offender Act. Certain first-time offenders who finish their probation without any infractions are eligible for the procedure, which Georgia law refers to as an "exoneration."
Meanwhile, Randall Miller asserted in his interview with The Wrap that the shoot in question was a legitimate endeavour with a “full-on crew of people” rather than “a strange side shoot.” He also told the outlet that Rayonier, the company that owned the land, "had signed contracts with us" and dispatched personnel to scout the area with the crew.
In other news, Entertainment Weekly has reached out to Miller regarding his legal proceedings, but they haven’t heard back yet.
