Nurse’s ’13 deadly decisions’ killed diabetic inmate, DA says. Brannan blames jailers.

The day before Joel Dixon died, he was so weak and his speech so slurred that jailers could only make out “help me.”

But nobody was going to help the 28-year-old inmate, South Mississippi District Attorney Tony Lawrence said, because registered nurse Carmon Brannan was in charge. Brannan, Lawrence said, made “13 deadly decisions” to ignore warnings that the diabetic inmate needed insulin.

He died in a jail cell the morning of Sept. 24, 2014, after seven days without insulin.

“All she had to do was call the doctor,” Lawrence told a jury during closing arguments Monday morning in Warren County, where the case is being retried after a hung jury at the first trial’s conclusion earlier this year. “ ... He lay one mile from the hospital, but it might as well have been a million miles.”

Attorneys for Brannan, who has lost her nursing license, blamed jailers for failing to act.

Attorney Paul “Bud” Holmes told jurors: “Ninety times those guards were supposed to monitor and report. ... What is fair about blaming her for something those guards didn’t tell her?”

Holmes also said the guards could have called 911. But Lawrence and Assistant District Attorney Cherie Wade said it was Brannan’s duty, as the medical staffer, to monitor Dixon’s condition, and give him his insulin or get medical help if he refused to take it.

Nobody disputed that Dixon was throwing up, slurring his speech and unable to eat in the days before he died. When she testified, Brannan said she believed he was suffering from methamphetamine withdrawal.

Special Judge Richard McKenzie said the jury should return a manslaughter verdict if they find beyond a reasonable doubt that Brannan had a duty to provide medical attention and failed to do it.

The case went to the jury just before lunch Monday. If convicted, Brannan faces up to 20 years in prison.

Her family has been with her for the six-day trial, including sister Cammie Brannan Byrd, George County’s chancery clerk.

Staff Writer Margaret Baker contributed to this report.

This story was originally published July 30, 2018 at 12:33 PM.