Judge to Rule Thursday on Delaying Brando Trial

A Santa Monica judge will decide Thursday whether to give prosecutors more time to subpoena actor Marlon Brando’s daughter to testify in the murder trial of his son, set to begin next Tuesday.

Deputy Dist. Atty. William D. Clark said that Cheyenne Brando, 20, has said she will return if her doctors and French authorities in Tahiti give permission.

The international legal hoops are formidable, involving state and federal courts, the U.S. State Department, and the French courts in Papeete, where she is charged with complicity in the shooting death of her lover, who was a French citizen.

Cheyenne Brando flew to Tahiti after telling police here that the death of Dag Drollet last May was not an accident but “a murder, in case you don’t know it.” She said that her half brother, Christian, who is charged in the case, had repeatedly threatened to kill Drollet and had gotten a gun from his girlfriend’s apartment just before the shooting.