Dothan man ordered to serve year in jail for slaying

A Dothan man will serve a year in jail for a 2007 slaying after a Houston County judge said Tuesday that the man did not get multiple chances to abide by the rulings of the court.

Circuit Court Judge Butch Binford denied a request by attorney Shaun McGhee for the court to release his client, Brandon Bell, from jail for treatment at the Haven, a drug treatment facility.
Bell, 28, of Citadel Street, did not attend the hearing because he was at the Houston County Jail on medical quarantine amid a suspected influenza outbreak.

Bell pleaded guilty in March to misdemeanor criminally negligent homicide for his involvement in the slaying of Richard Smith Jr., which happened in June 2007. He was originally given a suspended sentence and probation for the misdemeanor, but Binford revoked it and ordered Bell to serve a year in jail. Bell was originally charged with capital murder in the Smith slaying, but it was later reduced to the misdemeanor.

Bell had been wanted by authorities after he failed to show up in court for a delinquency hearing with the court referral officer over the summer. Bell was arrested late last month.

“It’s not an automatic one, two, three or four chances he gets,” Binford said. “He’s to comply with the CRO. I mean what I say. There’s nothing more for me to hear. I’m going to deny any request for him to be released.”

McGhee asked the court if his client could serve his time with Houston County Community Corrections, which Binford denied.

Binford ordered Bell to serve the year in the Houston County Jail.

Capital murder charges were filed against three men in Smith’s death. Smith suffered multiple gunshot wounds on June 20, 2007, while he was inside a 1995 Mercury Grand Marquis on Railroad Street. The other two men also received probation.