Wednesday, January 14, 2015

Vietnam Veteran, with Severe PTS, Executed

As the country served ignores so many issues, of our wars, or just plain denies they exist, for decades, especially PTS, so many more, these are the results. From the extremely tragic incidents to the ends that follow. The first execution of 2015!

Should he have been convicted, yes. Should he have been sent to prison, yes, and with a life sentence and treatment, if through treatment he better understood he could have been an asset to other veterans imprisoned and from the mitigating possibilities of their own PTS that led them to break the laws. Should he have been executed,No!!

Vietnam veteran convicted in cop shooting executed in Georgia
January 13, 2015 - 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.

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"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.

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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. read more>>>

As PTS, after veterans fought to recognize for decades, was finally recognized with these two, still unpaid for, recent wars and long occupations, specialized veterans courts were established finally, starting in 2008, and have been growing in numbers across the country!

Veterans Courts - Resource Guide


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