Andrew Howard Brannan survived the Vietnam War with great distinction, earning a Bronze Star and two medals of commendation for his combat.
But at 7 p.m. Tuesday in a Georgia prison about 50 miles south of Atlanta, Brannan is scheduled to die ignominiously by lethal injection for murdering a young deputy on the side of a Laurens County road, his only crime in nearly seven decades of living.
There is no doubt Brannan gunned down 22-year-old Kyle Dinkheller as the sun was setting on a rural stretch of Whipple Crossing Road in January 1998. The killing was recorded by the camera mounted on the deputy’s dash and the sound was picked up by the microphone Dinkheller was wearing.
But on Monday, in a quest to spare Brannan’s life, the argument his lawyers and supporters will make to the state Board of Pardons and Paroles is why Brannan did it.
“We aren’t arguing guilt or innocence. We’re not arguing proportionality,” said Joe Loveland, one of Brannan’s lawyers.
Brannan’s trial in January 2000 was fair and his representation adequate, according to the long line of state and federal appellate courts that heard Brannan’s appeals.
Only one court said jurors might have decided differently had they known about the extent of Brannan’s post-traumatic stress disorder and bipolar disorder. The Department of Veterans Affairs determined in 1991 that Brannan was permanently disabled by PTSD, and according to his lawyers Brannan had stopped taking medication for bipolarism at the time of the shooting.
Loveland said executing the 66-year-old veteran makes no sense when considered in light of “everything we now know about the impact of combat on people” and that Brannan has “no prior violent conduct and no subsequent violent conduct.”
His appeals all but exhausted, Brannan’s most likely last chance of being spared the needle comes Monday, starting at 9 a.m., when the state Board of Pardons and Paroles in downtown Atlanta will hear from his lawyers, the prosecutor, and friends and relatives of the slain deputy.
“They are effectively the conscience of the state of Georgia,” Loveland said.
The five-member board — which rules by majority — can commute the death sentence to life without parole, can issue a 90-day delay to get more information, or can allow Brannan’s capital punishment to proceed. Its decision could come as early as Monday afternoon, but a commuted death sentence is rare. It last happened in Georgia in July, only the fifth time in the state since 2002.
According to the Parole Board petition and trial records, Brannan was a good soldier. He was a lieutenant when he was honorably discharged after serving as a forward observer in a unit that provided artillery support for combat troops.
In January 1998, as he was returning from visiting his mother in Stockbridge, Brannan was pulled over when he had almost reached his Laurens County home — a house he’d built without installing running water or electricity.
Dinkheller had spotted Brannan driving 98 mph in his white pickup on I-16 and followed him off the interstate.
According to video played in court, Dinkheller and Brannan got out of their cars and exchanged pleasantries. But Brannan ignored the deputy’s repeated commands to walk toward his patrol car. Brannan answered with expletives, shouting, “Here I am! … Shoot me,” while dancing in the road.
After Dinkheller called for backup, Brannan got an M-1 carbine from his truck, emptied one magazine and reloaded. Dinkheller was hit nine times, including when Brannan stood over him and said “die.”
Brannan was found hiding in the woods near his house, shot in the stomach. The M-1 was in his house.
Putnam County Sheriff Howard Sills, who helped prosecutors present the case, said the jury heard testimony about Brannan’s PTSD and apparently discounted it.
“Since when does the Viet Cong stop you with a Laurens County patrol car with a blue strobe light?” Sills said. “The man he opened fire on was not wearing black pajamas. He was wearing a blue uniform.”
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