Hearing for Brando Begins : Sentencing: The killing of his half-sister’s boyfriend was not an accident, a detective says.

It had the trappings of a Hollywood premiere.

Hours before Christian Brando’s sentencing hearing was to begin Tuesday, dozens of paparazzi and TV camera crews were in position--some climbing in through windows and swarming through the hallway, others posted at every entrance to the Santa Monica courthouse.

Inside the courtroom of Superior Court Judge Robert Thomas, reporters were shown to reserved seats designated on a color chart. Side sections were roped off for witnesses and the families of Brando and the victim.

The few remaining seats filled quickly with movie fans and exotic women with kohl-rimmed eyes and tight dresses. All were required to go through a metal detector and have purses and briefcases examined. Some were subjected to body searches.

Then came the bit players and supporting actors: “that’s his (Brando’s) ex-wife,” “that’s his girlfriend,” “that’s nobody,” the crowd murmured with each arrival.

Then, after a dramatic pause, the word was passed: “He’s coming!”

The Brando family arrived en masse--Marlon sporting a new ponytail, secured with a red band that matched his tie; Christian blinking as the cameras flashed, and Miko, another of the actor’s nine children.

Thus began the first of three days of a hearing to determine how long Brando will spend behind bars for the shooting death last May of Dag Drollet, 26, his half-sister’s Tahitian lover.

Brando pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter and could be sentenced to a maximum of 16 years in prison.

Tuesday’s highlight was the appearance of William Smith, a felon and former fugitive, now in custody, who testified that he witnessed two incidents of violence involving young Brando before Drollet was shot. Prosecutors called him to support their contention that Brando has a history of violent conduct.

Smith said Brando once fired a gun in the air after Smith and two uninvited companions tried to crash a barbecue at Brando’s Laurel Canyon home, then followed the group to their car and pointed the gun inside toward a drunken passenger, Ricardo Alvarez. The gun discharged, Smith said, grazing the side of the Alvarez’s head.

“I’m not too sure Alvarez didn’t grab on to it,” Smith told Deputy Dist. Atty. Steven Barshop. “I’m not sure which one (Alvarez or Brando) made it go off.”

Smith described a second incident, a scuffle he witnessed in which Brando “grabbed something--I think it was a hammer” and smashed the headlights of a man’s car.

Under cross-examination by defense attorney Robert Shapiro, Smith admitted that he asked the district attorney’s office for “a deal,” because he is facing sentencing for parole violation on alcohol- and drug-related charges.

The remainder of Tuesday’s testimony was largely a replay of evidence presented during the preliminary hearing. Los Angeles Police Detective Andrew Monsue, chief investigator in the case, testified that he does not believe Brando’s claim that the gun went off accidentally while he and Drollet wrestled over it.

“I did not find anything (at the crime scene, a den in Marlon Brando’s hilltop estate) to indicate there was a struggle, . . .” he said.

Monsue said Drollet’s body was sprawled on a sofa, holding a television remote control in his right hand and smoking paraphernalia in his left. However, when the defense showed him an enlarged photo of Drollet, Monsue said it appears that his right hand is only touching the TV device, which is upside down and backward.

Monsue also suggested that Brando may not have been drunk at the time of the shooting, as he claims and as a Breathalyzer test indicated.

Barshop played a taped confession Brando made to police just after the shooting in which Brando insists that the shooting was accidental. The tape was not allowed into evidence at the preliminary hearing because the detective who conducted the interrogation failed to advise Brando of his legal rights. “He (Drollet) grabbed my wrist with the gun . . . and it went off. . . . I don’t know if I hit the trigger or he hit the trigger. Who knows?” And the cause of the confrontation? “He ticked me off. . . . I wanted to bust him in the chops ‘cause he was beating up on my little sister when she was four months pregnant.”

The victim’s family--including his parents, Jacques Drollet and Lisette LeCaill--listened to the proceedings with headphones through which an interpreter fed simultaneous French translation. The victim’s mother held his sleeping 5-year-old daughter, leaving the courtroom briefly when large photos of her son’s corpse were shown.

Marlon Brando was expressionless, except for a brief moment when he passed his son at the counsel table during a break, stopping to whisper something and patting him warmly on the head.