Ga. executes Vietnam vet whose lawyers claimed PTSD tie to killing of deputy

FILE – This undated prison file photo provided by the Georgia Department of Corrections shows convicted murderer Andrew Brannan. (AP Photo/Georgia Department of Corrections, File)

JACKSON, Ga. –  A man who fatally shot a sheriff’s deputy who stopped him for speeding on a Georgia interstate was put to death Tuesday for the 1998 killing, which was captured on the patrol car’s video camera.

Andrew Howard Brannan, 66, was pronounced dead at 8:33 p.m. Tuesday after a single-drug injection at the state prison in Jackson. He was convicted of the January 1998 shooting death of Kyle Dinkheller, a 22-year-old sheriff’s deputy in Laurens County, central Georgia.

“I extend my condolences to the Dinkheller family, especially Kyle’s parents and his wife and his two children,” Brannan said in a statement moments before the injection was administered.

Lawyers for Brannan, a Vietnam veteran, had unsuccessfully argued to authorities to spare the inmate’s life, saying the shooting was tied to mental illness directly traced to Brannan’s military service.

Dinkheller had stopped Brannan for driving 98 mph and demanded he take his hands from his pockets during a traffic stop, officials said Brannan then began cursing, dancing in the street and saying “shoot me” before he rushed the deputy. After a scuffle, Brannan pulled a high-powered rifle from his car and shot Dinkheller at least nine times, authorities said.

The confrontation was captured by a video camera in Dinkheller’s patrol car and a microphone he wore. Parts including the scuffle between the two happened off camera, according to court documents. But Dinkheller can be heard yelling orders at Brannan, who responded with expletives, authorities said. Brannan can also be seen crouching by his car and firing at the deputy as Dinkheller yelled at him to stop. Brannan walked toward the patrol car, still firing, exhausted one magazine, reloaded and continued firing, authorities said.

Police found Brannan the next day hiding under a camouflage tarp near his home. He had been shot in the stomach, apparently by Dinkheller.

Dinkheller, who was married, had been promoted months before to an elite interstate highway squad. He had nearly three years with the sheriff’s department.

The Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles held a hearing Monday on a petition for clemency from Brannan’s lawyers and denied the request to commute the sentence to life without parole.

“Is it right to execute a mentally-ill veteran whose sole incidence of violent behavior is traceable directly and inexorably to mental illness resulting from his combat service?” Brannan’s lawyers had written in that clemency petition.

Brannan volunteered to serve in the U.S. Army in 1968 and received two Army Commendation Medals and a Bronze Star for his service in the Vietnam War, the clemency petition said, adding he was repeatedly exposed to death and violence in Vietnam.

Veterans Administration doctors had diagnosed Brannan with post-traumatic stress disorder in 1984 and determined that his condition had deteriorated to the point of 100 percent disability by 1990, the petition said. That mental illness was compounded by bipolar disorder diagnosed in 1996, his lawyers added.

Brannan was convicted and sentenced to death in 2000. He challenged the legality of his conviction and sentence in 2003, and a state court judge threw out his sentence on grounds that his trial lawyer failed to present complete mental health defenses. But the Georgia Supreme Court later tossed out that ruling and reinstated the death sentence

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Ga. executes Vietnam vet whose lawyers claimed PTSD tie to killing of deputy

Administration lawyers argue Hobby Lobby ruling on birth control doesn’t apply to religious groups

FILE: May 22, 2013: Customers are seen at a Hobby Lobby store in Denver. (AP)

The Obama administration says faith-based nonprofits should comply with ObamaCare’s birth-control mandate because they have more leeway than the corporations that won a Supreme Court ruling on the issue last year.

Government attorneys made the argument on Thursday to the Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, after pro-life ministry Priests for Life asked the court to reconsider a ruling it made last fall that requires religious nonprofits to object in writing to regulations that require employer health care plans to insure contraceptives, as reported by The Washington Times.

The group says the court’s decision contradicted the Supreme Court’s ruling in the Hobby Lobby case, which stated closely held corporations did not have to insure contraceptives that conflicted with their owners’ beliefs, particularly morning-after pills that some equate with abortion.

The justices cited the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993, which requires the government to achieve its aims in the least restrictive way.

But the administration says nonprofits should not expect the Hobby Lobby case to bail them out, considering “the linchpin” of the high court’s ruling was the “opt-out alternative afforded to organizations such as the plaintiffs in this case.”

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Administration lawyers argue Hobby Lobby ruling on birth control doesn’t apply to religious groups

Tsarnaev lawyers ask judge to suspend jury selection over Paris attacks - Hernandez jurors asked about Pats games, tattoos

Jan. 5, 2015: In this file courtroom sketch, Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, left, is depicted beside U.S. District Judge George O’Toole Jr., right, as O’Toole addresses a pool of potential jurors in a jury assembly room at the federal courthouse, in Boston.(AP)

BOSTON –  Lawyers for Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev asked a judge on Tuesday to suspend jury selection in his trial for at least a month because the recent terrorist attacks in France have again placed the marathon bombings “at the center of a grim global drama.”

The lawyers said a delay would allow some time “for the extraordinary prejudice flowing from these events — and the comparison of those events to those at issue in this case — to diminish.”

They said potential jurors have been instructed to avoid media reports about Tsarnaev’s case, but were exposed to reports about the French attacks. Jury selection began last week.

“Almost immediately after the attacks, the press, politicians, and commentators drew parallels between the French attacks and the Boston Marathon bombing,” the lawyers wrote.

In the marathon case, authorities say Tsarnaev and his older brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, planned and carried out the attack as retaliation for U.S. wars in Muslim countries. Three people were killed and more than 260 were wounded when twin bombs exploded at the finish line April 15, 2013.

Tamerlan was killed in a shootout with police days after the bombings. Dzhokhar, 21, could face the death penalty if convicted.

In the Paris attacks, two gunmen, brothers Cherif and Said Kouachi burst into the offices of the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, killing 12 people. A total of 17 people were shot dead in the three-day terrorist killing spree, including four hostages. The Kouachi brothers and a third gunman were killed by police.

While “Boston Strong” became the slogan used to show unity following the marathon attacks, “Je suis Charlie” (“I am Charlie”) has become a popular slogan since the Paris attacks.

The Paris attacks began Jan. 7, which was the third day of jury selection in Tsarnaev’s trial in Boston. More than 1,350 prospective jurors have been called in to federal court to fill out lengthy juror questionnaires. The judge is scheduled to begin questioning individual jurors Thursday.

Tsarnaev’s lawyers have asked repeatedly to delay the trial and to move it outside Massachusetts, where almost everyone seems to know someone connected to the marathon or personally affected by the 2013 bombings. Federal Judge George O’Toole Jr. has rejected the defense requests.

“Even before the Paris attacks, there was no modern precedent of which we are aware for attempting to seat an impartial jury in a community that had been so recently, so grievously, and so widely affected by a single series of crimes,” the defense lawyers wrote Tuesday.

“Now, at the very moment this attempt is to be made, the Boston bombings are being newly placed at the center of a grim global drama. At a minimum, the court should pause long enough to let this latest storm subside,” they wrote.

Legal analysts said earlier Tuesday that the French terror attacks could provide new grounds for Tsarnaev’s lawyers to argue for a delay or for moving the trial outside Boston.

Jeffrey Abramson, a professor of law and government at the University of Texas at Austin, said that if he were one of Tsarnev’s lawyers, he would ask for a delay of three to six months “until the Paris comparison fades a bit.”

“Whatever scabbing or healing had begun to take place, the Boston wound is freshly ripped open by the events in Paris,” said Abramson, who has written extensively about the jury system in the United States.

Abramson said it would be difficult for any jury pool not to see similarities between the two cases and be potentially influenced by them.

“It just cries out for comparison,” he said.

Veteran Boston defense attorney Jeffrey Denner said Tsarnaev’s defense could argue that the pall cast by the Paris attacks will make it difficult to find jurors who can be impartial in Tsarnaev’s case.

“Emotions are really running high now. The terrorist problem, while it’s always this 800-pound elephant sitting in the room, right now it’s the 800-pound elephant sitting right on the defendant,” Denner said. “It’s hard to ever view terrorist threats in an impartial way, but it’s almost impossible where the events are so fresh and poignant as last week.”

But Denner said suspending a trial after jury selection has begun would be highly unusual.

“On the other hand, the central issue still remains: Can any defendant get a fair trial given the circumstances and context of the case? The context has changed when the whole terror situation has been exacerbated dramatically over the past week,” he added.

Denner said he also thinks it’s unlikely the judge would reconsider moving the trial because of the Paris attacks.

“Right now, I think it would be hard to get a fair trial anywhere,” he said.

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Tsarnaev lawyers ask judge to suspend jury selection over Paris attacks - Hernandez jurors asked about Pats games, tattoos

Chik-V closes court. Lawyers, accused, complainants absent from sitting

Andr? Williams, STAR Writer

The much feared and talked about Chikungunya virus severely disrupted the proceedings of the Corporate Area Resident Magistrate’s Court on Friday

Lawyers, complainants and even some accused persons were absent as a result of the virus. Preferences were given to people who showed up for cases but were too ill to stay the length of the session.

Senior Resident Magistrate Judith Pusey said that she had to consider those affected as the illness has caused much discomfort.

However, while giving bypass to those who showed signs of pain or those allegedly affected, RM Pusey warned that persons seeking the assistance of the court must be truthful about their current situation.

THE STAR watched as the usual gathering and pace which usually depicts a court sitting on a Friday, was noticeably absent.

A court representative who spoke on condition of anonymity disclosed, “The chik-V a di baddest virus mi see walk through the courts in recent memory. It shot everybody, lawyers, judges and clerks, you name it. The impact will definitely result in backlog of cases even if its for a short time as cases are put off adding to the already usual limitations.”

RM Pusey during her closing on Friday, wished for the court staff, officers and clerks, to be safe over the weekend and advised them to drink plenty chicken soup and try to remain healthy.

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Chik-V closes court. Lawyers, accused, complainants absent from sitting