D.A. Won’t Pursue Cheyenne Brando if She Is Unfit for Trial : Murder case: Prosecutors seek an independent exam of witness to shooting. She remains in psychiatric hospital in Tahiti.

Despite winning a legal skirmish Tuesday, prosecutors in the Christian Brando murder case said they will drop further efforts to secure testimony from the suspect’s half sister, Cheyenne Brando, if doctors declare her mental or physical health too fragile.

“If we determine that Cheyenne Brando cannot come to the U.S. because it would be detrimental to her physically or emotionally, then we will not pursue her further,” said Deputy Dist. Atty. Steven Barshop.

He said that the district attorney’s five-month effort to bring her back from Tahiti is “predicated on her ability to be an able witness. We will do nothing to hurt her as a human being. That is not our intention.”

Barshop said prosecutors will repeat their request to French authorities for an independent medical examination of the 20-year-old daughter of actor Marlon Brando. She remains in a psychiatric hospital following two suicide attempts earlier this month.

Barshop said that prosecutors will continue to take the necessary legal steps to make her return possible.

“We have gone to the federal District Court, the local Superior Court, the California Supreme Court and the Court of Appeal,” Barshop said. “Today, the Court of Appeal agreed with our legal position.”

The state’s 2nd District Court of Appeal ruled Tuesday that Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Joel Rudof erred when he said he did not have authority to issue a formal request for assistance from a foreign jurisdiction, in this case Tahiti, in returning a witness to the United States.

The appellate court noted that it was not deciding whether Rudof should grant the prosecution’s request for the letter, whether a federal court should issue a subpoena to accompany it, or whether Cheyenne Brando is capable of traveling to Los Angeles to testify.

Prosecutors have said that Cheyenne Brando is the key witness in their case against Christian Brando, who is charged with murdering her lover, Dag Drollet. Having spent the evening of May 16--the night of the shooting--with Christian, she is the only witness who could testify about his state of mind and the events leading up to Drollet’s death, they said.

Christian Brando, 32, has admitted shooting Drollet after his sister said that he had beaten her, but he maintains that the gun went off accidentally during a struggle between the two men.

His trial has been delayed by the prosecution’s inability to get a clear answer about Cheyenne Brando’s wishes, condition and legal status in Tahiti.

She has said that she wants to return to testify. She has been hospitalized five times since returning to her home in Tahiti in June. French authorities have seized her passport, pending the outcome of a complaint filed there accusing her of being an accessory in Drollet’s murder.

No new trial date has been set, and jury selection is not expected to begin before January. Lawyers have 30 days to appeal Tuesday’s decision.

Defense attorney Robert Shapiro said that he had given a letter to the district attorney from the chief psychiatrist at the hospital where Cheyenne Brando is being treated, stating that she had made two suicide attempts and that her emotional and mental state requires her hospitalization.

The victim’s father, Jacques Drollet, said in Tahiti that the young woman is being prevented from testifying by her family. She “knows things and she wants to tell the truth,” he said.

“She’s not crazy, she’s very sound and clear,” said Drollet. “Her family and Marlon Brando are keeping her away,” from Los Angeles.