Brandon case won’t be heard for months|[3/22/06]

Published 12:00 am Wednesday, March 22, 2006

Grand jury deliberations are not expected before August in the Friday shooting spree in Port Gibson that left an attorney dead and a Claiborne County employee wounded.

Laboratory tests on some evidence in the case may be needed, said District Attorney Alexander Martin, meaning the case against Carl Brandon, 52, won’t be presented to a jury scheduled to be empaneled on April 4.

The next panel is in August, followed by one in December. In Mississippi, grand juries consider whether evidence is sufficient for indictment and trial.

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Brandon is in the Claiborne County Jail, held on charges of murder, aggravated assault and shooting into an occupied dwelling.

Attorney Allen Burrell, 54, a private practitioner who represented the county board of supervisors, was killed outside his 710 Market St. office about 8 a.m.. Shotgun blasts were fired into the 308 Mansion St. home of county administrator James Miller minutes later and administrative secretary Loretha Porter was wounded in her office at the county road department barn on Mississippi 18 about 8:20. Brandon surrendered to Sheriff Frank Davis about 8:30.

Services for Burrell were Monday, the same day Porter, who reportedly sustained abdominal wounds, was released from University Medical Center in Jackson.

At his initial court appearance Tuesday before Claiborne County Justice Court Judge Daniel Lucas, Brandon told Lucas he would retain an attorney and plead innocent.

Martin asked that Brandon continue to be held without bond. Lucas granted that request and said an attorney for Brandon could request a bond hearing on Brandon’s behalf.

The Claiborne Justice Court Clerk’s Office had received no notice this morning that such a request had been filed, a spokesman there said.

Brandon is former manager of the county road department. He was fired from that job in May 1997 after a county investigation into allegations that he sexually harassed a woman department employee. He appealed that action unsuccessfully through the state’s court system, ending with an October 2002 refusal by the Supreme Court to review the case.

Burrell, Miller and Porter all had roles in the firing, which Brandon continued Tuesday to say was unfounded.