Jan. 3
GEORGIA----impending execution
Laurens County cop killer set for execution
A Georgia man convicted of killing a sheriff's deputy during a traffic stop in
1998 is set to be executed later this month, state corrections officials said
Friday.
Department of Corrections Commissioner Brian Owens has scheduled the execution
of Andrew Howard Brannan, 66, for Jan. 13 at 7 p.m. at the state prison in
Jackson, according to a department news release.
Brannan was sentenced to die for the January 1998 slaying of 22-year-old
Laurens County sheriff's deputy Kyle Dinkheller. The shooting was captured by
the video camera on Dinkheller's patrol car.
District attorney Craig Fraser, who tried the death-penalty phase of the case,
said his thoughts and prayers were with all involved.
"It's been a 17-year-long journey for the family ... and I hope this brings
closure for the family," Fraser said.
Authorities have said Dinkheller stopped Brannan for driving 98 mph and
demanded he take his hands from his pockets. 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
9 times.
Police found Brannan the next day hiding in a sleeping bag beneath a camouflage
tarp about 100 yards from a house where they had tracked him after the
shooting. He had been shot in the stomach, apparently by Dinkheller.
A jury convicted him in 2000, and the Georgia Supreme Court upheld the
conviction 2 years later.
His trial attorney had argued an insanity defense and called expert witnesses
who testified Brannan suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder, which had
triggered a flashback to Vietnam.
But a court-appointed psychiatrist concluded he was sane, and a Glynn County
jury convicted him of murder. The trial was moved from Laurens County because
of pretrial publicity.
Brannan challenged the legality of his conviction and sentence in 2003, and a
state court judge threw out both on grounds that his trial lawyer failed to
present complete mental health defenses.
Arguing before the Georgia Supreme Court in 2008, a lawyer for Brannan said the
trial attorneys failed to uncover traumas Brannan had experienced in Vietnam
and to present evidence that he also suffered from bipolar disorder.
A lawyer for the state argued the investigation was thorough and the trial
lawyers chose not to emphasize Brannan's bipolar disorder, in part because his
post-traumatic stress disorder was better documented.
The high court found that his trial counsel did an adequate job of presenting
that defense.
(source: Associated Press)
******************************
Execution set for man who murdered deputy in 1998
The Georgia Department of Corrections on Friday set a Jan. 13 execution date
for Andrew Howard Brannan, who murdered a 22-year-old Laurens County deputy
during a 1998 traffic stop.
If Brannan is put to death by lethal injection, he will be 2nd man Georgia has
executed in little more than a month; Robert Holsey was executed on Dec. 9 for
murdering a Baldwin County deputy.
In January 1998, Laurens County deputy Kyle Dinkheller stopped Brannan on
Interstate 16 for speeding, driving at 98 mph.
All that happened after Brannan was pulled over was captured by a video camera
on the deputy's car.
According to the video shown the jury, Brannan got out of his truck and ignored
Dinkheller's demands that he take his hands out of his pockets.
Brannan swore at the deputy and began dancing on the road and yelling, "shoot
me." At one point he yelled he was a "Vietnam combat veteran."
Then Brannan rushed the the deputy and they struggled for a few moments until
Brannan ran back to his truck and got a .30 M-1 carbine. He shot Dinkheller 9
times, including once at close range.
In the trial, Brannan's attorney said he was insane and asked the jury to find
him not guilty. The defense lawyer said Brannan had post traumatic stress
disorder and would have flashbacks to his experience Vietnam.
But according to the court-appointed psychiatrist, Brannan was sane.
(source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution)
ALABAMA:
Should Alabama Bring Back the Electric Chair Named Yellow Mama?
Should we sympathize with an Alabama legislator who is wringing his hands over
the problem of executing those on Alabama's Death Row? State Representative
Lynn Greer is behind a drive to revitalize the famous electric chair named
Yellow Mama because of its color. Mr. Greer's dilemma is that the state, like
some others, is having a problem obtaining lethal injection drugs that work.
Apparently the last few times some states tried to use the lethal cocktails,
the results were the writhing, foaming, tortured body of a man who has not been
lethally injected but rather has been injected with a mix of drugs that are
supposed to be quickly lethal. People witnessing these executions were
presented with a prolonged agonizing death process that can only be described
as torture.Yes, it's true the person being executed may have had no mercy on
the person or persons they killed, and may have even tortured them, but you
have to ask yourself is this the way you want to legally end someones life?
It's safe to say most civilized people will want the punishment to be swift.
This is not only for the person being executed, but for those who choose to
witness the execution. This sometimes includes family and friends of the
victim(s).
There are currently 97 black males, 90 white males, 3 other ethnicity males, 1
back female and 2 white females on Alabama's death row. Arthur Lee Giles has
been in Holman prison since August 18, 1979, longer than any other Alabama
prisoner on death row. Almost 1/2 the prisoners on death row in Alabama have
been there since the 1990's. Giles robbed a house at which he was working
picking vegetables, killing Willene and Carl Nelson and critically injuring 3
children using knifes and guns. He had an accomplice Aaron Lee Jones, whose
status is unknown. All the prisoners on death row are there for murder, and
many of them were committed during the act of a robbery. I cannot say that each
and every person on death row in Alabama actually did the crime they were
accused and found guilty, but they went through the legal process that found
them so.
I don't have a degree in pharmacology but it's difficult to believe no one in
the entire country - in the world for that matter - can provide a syringe
filled with a drug that will instantly put the inmate to sleep and then within
a few minutes peacefully kill them. The story is there is a shortage of the
drugs. I'm skeptical. The electric chair seems on the cruel side because it
does not kill the person right away. It sends high voltage electricity through
them, causing the person to convulse, shake and then at some point die.
Should we really care how we kill these people who in many cases savagely
killed others? I think we have to step back and realize that in a way we are
playing God. Regardless of what that person did we are still selecting them and
saying we are going to kill you for what you did. Just my thoughts here but
people who think, yes, let's kill them in a way that makes them suffer for what
they did, are not people I would want to call my friends. That sort of revenge
mentality is definitely something I cannot reconcile. There are some who are
against the death penalty altogether. I am probably one of the few liberals who
believe people who stab, chop up, beat to death, shoot innocent adults and
children will not be rehabilitated to a level they could be released back in
society.
I am infuriated that Charles Manson, who although supposedly did not do any of
the killing himself, directed several others to commit one of the most brutal,
unbelievable murder sprees in American history and he is still alive 40 years
after it happened. He is about to get married in prison. It is a very sad
reflection of the American society, of us as people, that Charles Manson is a
celebrity who is treated better than many people outside that California
prison. The state of California and its residents are the most to blame in this
murder case that was never handled correctly. May I remind you his followers
cut open a pregnant woman and wrote the word pig on a wall using her blood. But
you in California have banned the death penalty because...? Charles Manson
carried out the death penalty and did not even need your state's permission.
I would recommend death by shooting squad over the electric chair. The person
should die within a few seconds of being shot with multiple rounds by several
people. Still, lethal injection is the preferred method, if experts can find a
way to create and have available the drug to be used. People die of heroin
overdoses all the time.
The state of Tennessee this year brought back the electric chair, the only
state in America to use it regardless of the inmates preferred method of dying.
8 other states will use the electric chair if the inmate agrees, but to date
there are no reports that any inmate in America has selected this method of
dying. Can you imagine any of them would?
I have an idea. Why not build a federal facility in which every state in the
country would send their death row inmates. At this facility the inmates would
work full-time 5 days a week doing a variety of jobs such as printing federal
documents, repairing federal office machinery, repairing federal vehicles such
as mail trucks, refurbishing furniture and equipment - there are a lot of tasks
these people could perform while they are waiting for their state to decide how
and when they can perform the execution. Because they are working they will not
be a financial burden. It relieves each state from the costs they are incurring
for inmates who have been on death row for over 25 years. It provides a
centralize location to keep and monitor the prisoners. That's what I would do
but then again who am I but just one person in a sea of millions, with his own
individual opinion like most everyone else.
(source: Preston Brady III is a writer and publisher based in Mobile, Alabama;
The Mobile Tribune)
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