A Vietnam veteran who brutally shot and killed a sheriff's deputy during a routine traffic stop in 1998 has sparked a national conversation on capital punishment for former troops with combat-related post-traumatic stress disorder.

Andrew Brannan murdered Laurens County, Georgia, deputy Kyle Dinkheller on Jan. 12, 1998, after he was pulled over for going 98 miles per hour on a country road.

Brannan shot the 22-year-old deputy multiple times in a violent exchange filmed entirely by Dinkheller's dashboard camera.

At the time, Brannan, an Army veteran, had a 100-percent disability rating for PTSD from the Veterans Affairs Department and was "off his medications," his attorneys said.

In the video, he is seen dancing, acting erratically and shouting "I am a Goddam Vietnam combat veteran" before he retrieves a gun from his truck and shoots at Dinkheller, including at close range after the deputy is already down and begging for his life.

Brannan is scheduled to be executed Tuesday at 7 p.m. But his attorneys have made several final-hours attempts to save his life, arguing that when he was tried for the crime, little was understood about the lifelong psychiatric impact of combat and combat-related PTSD.

According to attorney Tom Lundin, the past 14 years of combat in Iraq and Afghanistan have contributed to a greater understanding of PTSD and helped create laws in some states requiring courts to consider a veterans' combat experience as potential evidence in capital cases.

"The nation's understanding has evolved so much in the past 14 years," said Lundin, an attorney with the Atlanta firm King & Spalding. "This case violates the Eighth Amendment. It is cruel and unusual punishment for a combat veteran suffering from documented PTSD and he should not be executed."

But the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles denied Brannan's appeal on Monday, and on Tuesday, the Georgia Supreme Court also denied a motion requesting a stay. Brannan's attorneys planned to appeal that decision to the U.S. Supreme Court, requesting a delay "long enough for these issues to be fully considered" by the court, Lundin said.

Lundin said the the court deciding that the execution be postponed would be "unusual," but added that the legal team remained hopeful.

"This violence was directly tied to the injury he sustained for volunteering to serve his country," Lundin said.

In filing the appeal for clemency, Brannan's legal team produced a host of letters from combat veterans ranging from enlisted personnel and a retired Army brigadier general who served in Vietnam to several Marine Corps veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan.

The 13 veterans agreed that Brannan's crime was heinous but also defended his right to live, noting the horrors they endured in war and the life-changing consequences such violence can have on an individual's mental state.

One Vietnam veteran noted the "immense psychological scaring as a result of being in combat" as well as the mental anguish of returning to a "bitterly antagonistic homeland."

"In the absence of his Vietnam service, Andrew Brannan does not become mentally broken and he does not commit his crime," wrote one former Army soldier.

"If one frames the question as whether it is appropriate for the state to put to death a mentally wounded combat veteran who would not have killed if it hadn't been for his service in Vietnam, the answer is a resounding, 'No,' " an Iraq veteran wrote in his letter.

The former service members asked that their names not be disclosed publicly out of privacy considerations.

According to court documents and his Army fitness reports, Brannan was a stellar soldier who earned the Bronze Star and two Army Commendation Medals.

He volunteered for service in 1968 and graduated second in his class at Officer Candidate School. After attending jump school, he was assigned to 1st Battalion, 14th Field Artillery Regiment in Vietnam, where he served as a forward observer.

In that position, he was exposed to combat nearly daily. His unit was subject to constant attack and enemy fire, and he personally witnessed the death of two company commanders — at one point assuming command of the unit when one commander died after tripping a booby trap.

But little of this combat experience was disclosed in Brannan's trial, which lasted a week. While his counsel pleaded for the jury to find him not guilty by reason of insanity, once he was convicted, his legal team did not provide much evidence during the sentencing phase of his combat experience.

His current attorneys argue that he did not get a chance to fairly defend himself.

"There should be a categorical exclusion from the death penalty for combat veterans suffering from PTSD," Lundin said.

But many believe that argument is not valid.

Army Sgt. Matt Anselmo, an M1 armor crewman, said anyone who sympathizes with Brannan must not have watched the horrific video of Dinkheller's death.

"He murders this officer for no reason in cold blood. Then [he] shows no remorse for what he did as he sped off and left the officer for dead," Anselmo told Military Times

Cpl. Brian Stokes, Dinkheller's friend and colleague in 1998, told reporters at the Gannett-owned television station WXIA in Atlanta that he disagrees with Brannan's legal team and wants the state to move forward with the execution, scheduled for 7 p.m.

"For myself, law enforcement and the family, I think this will bring closure, and peace, I hope," Stokes said.

Current Laurens County Sheriff Bill Harrell has the same perspective. "If that's what the court deems, that's what it has to be," he said of the pending execution. "It won't bring Kyle back, but like the Bible says, an eye for an eye."

Harrell, Stokes and 20 other officers from Laurens County plan to be at the execution, which will take place in Jackson, Georgia, according to WXIA.

About Patricia Kime

Patricia Kime is a senior writer covering military and veterans health care, medicine and personnel issues.

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