Corporal gets 27 months in death of Marine

[unhappycamper]

Corporal gets 27 months in death of Marine
Staff report
Posted : Monday Mar 10, 2008 8:38:51 EDT

OCEANSIDE, Calif. — A military jury at Camp Pendleton, Calif., on Thursday sentenced a corporal to 27 months in the brig for the 2006 shooting of a fellow rifleman while they were standing post in Iraq.

Cpl. Douglas Sullivan, 23, was handling an M16 rifle that he thought wasn’t loaded, he told a court, when he pointed it at Lance Cpl. Kristopher Cody Warren and pulled the trigger. Warren, 19, was killed in the Nov. 9, 2006, incident.

“It’s a difficult situation for both families,” Warren’s father, Joe Warren, said after the hearing, according to the North County Times newspaper. “He was judged by his superiors and other Marines. Cody trusted the Marines, so we have to trust what they decided. Cody would have wanted that.”

In closing arguments, lead prosecutor Capt. William Ryan asked jury members not to think of the shooting as “a simple accident,” the newspaper reported. “There is no way it can be an accident when a Marine, well trained in weapons, did what Corporal Sullivan did,” Ryan said.

Sullivan testified during the two-day court-martial. “I am in a debt for the rest of my life,” he testified Wednesday, the paper reported. “I owe the family. I let them down. I let my family down. I let the Marine Corps down.”


Article at: http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/news/2008/03/marine_manslaughter_030708/