Brando Son Pleads Not Guilty to Murder : Court: He is returned to jail after failing to post $10 million bail and surrender his passport.

Actor Marlon Brando’s son Christian pleaded not guilty Tuesday to murder and illegal-weapons charges, and was returned to jail after he failed to post $10 million bail and surrender his passport.

The younger Brando’s attorney, Robert Shapiro, asked Santa Monica Superior Court Judge David Perez to consider reducing the amount of bail and attaching conditions to it “that will satisfy the most skeptical person that Christian will definitely appear” for trial.

The attorney said outside court that conditions he may propose include placing Brando under “house arrest” using 24-hour guards, or requiring him to wear an electronic monitoring device on his wrist or ankle that would allow authorities to keep him under surveillance.

Perez scheduled a bail hearing for Thursday and pretrial motions for Sept. 14.

“We are going to ask that Christian not be singled out and treated any differently than anyone else would be in a similar situation,” Shapiro told a throng of reporters.

Asked how Marlon Brando’s fame and fortune could be disregarded in setting bail high enough to ensure that the actor’s son will not flee, Shapiro replied, “That’s not him, that’s his father. He’s just a 32-year-old welder. And he’s so high-profile. Where could he go?”

He said that bail on such charges as the younger Brando faces is usually set at $50,000 to $100,000.

“And the highest I’ve ever heard of, going through a bail bondsman, is $3 million,” the lawyer said.

After a two-day preliminary hearing last month, Brando was ordered to stand trial on one count of murder with special allegations and one count of possessing a machine gun.

He has admitted shooting Dag Drollet, 26, the boyfriend of his pregnant half-sister, in May at his father’s Mulholland Drive estate. But he said it was an accident:

“I shot him, man, but not on purpose,” Brando told police minutes after the incident. “We were both in a fit of rage; the gun went off. . . . Please believe me, I wouldn’t do it (shoot someone intentionally) in my father’s house.”

Although prosecutors asked that Brando be held without bail, Los Angeles Municipal Court Judge Larry Fidler last month set bail at $10 million and ordered that Brando surrender his passport.

Prosecutors had argued that Brando might attempt to leave the country as his half-sister, Cheyenne Brando, did. She returned to her home in Tahiti, presumably to avoid testifying against her brother, and has since given birth to Drollet’s child.

At the time, Shapiro told Fidler that the amount of bail was not an issue, given the family’s resources. But as days, and then weeks, passed, Brando remained in county jail, the lawyer said, because the family was unable to find his passport.

Asked about the passport Tuesday, he said, “We’ll discuss those issues on Thursday” at the bail hearing.

Paparazzi, tourists, groupies and several women claiming to be the defendant’s girlfriend jammed the corridors of the small seaside courthouse Tuesday. Most left disappointed when the elder Brando did not show up for the brief proceeding.

In court, Deputy Dist. Atty. Steven Barshop read the charges, then asked the defendant, “Mr. Brando, to the two charges, do you enter a plea of not guilty?”

“Yeah,” answered Brando, who had changed from jail blues to a white shirt, tie, and slacks for his arraignment.

Shapiro said later that he had asked Marlon Brando not to go to court Tuesday in an effort to avoid turning the hearing into a celebrity spectacle.