By Teri Figueroa, Special to the Times Free Press
CAMP PENDLETON, Calif. — A jury on Thursday sentenced a Camp Pendleton Marine to serve 27 months behind bars and receive a bad-conduct discharge for fatally shooting a North Georgia Marine while playing with a rifle in Iraq.
Cpl. Douglas Sullivan acknowledged he was playing with another Marine’s rifle when he lifted it to his shoulder, flipped off the safety, aimed at Lance Cpl. Kristopher Cody Warren and pulled the trigger.
Cpl. Sullivan, 23, a military policeman on his second tour in Iraq when the incident occurred in November 2006, has said he believed the gun was unloaded.
The sentence is subject to the approval of Maj. Gen. Thomas D. Waldhauser, who serves as the commanding general of the 1st Marine Division. Maj. Gen. Waldhauser can lessen but not increase the punishment.
Cpl. Sullivan stood ramrod straight as the jury foreman read the punishment in a crowded Camp Pendleton courtroom. When he sat down a few moments later, his folded hands trembled and his face and ears flushed red.
His family members, seated in the courtroom gallery behind him, cried softly.
Across the aisle, family members of the victim sat grim-faced. Lance Cpl. Warren, a Georgia native who graduated in 2005 from Gordon Central High School in Calhoun, Ga., and went by his middle name of Cody, was 19 when he died.
“It’s a difficult situation for both families,” Lance Cpl. Warren’s father, Joe Warren, of Woodstock, Ga., said after the hearing. “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.”
Lance Cpl. Warren’s mother, Robin Patterson, said she was glad the proceedings were over.
“Now we can finally let that precious, sweet boy rest,” she said.
In making his closing argument, prosecutor Capt. William Ryan asked the panel not to think of the shooting as “a simple accident.”
“There is no way it can be an accident when a Marine well trained in weapons did what Corporal Sullivan did,” Capt. Ryan said.
He reminded the jury of testimony that painted Lance Cpl. Warren as a well-liked go-getter who was efficient at his job and loved being a Marine.
The name of the case is United States v. Sullivan, Capt. Ryan said, but “the face of this case will always belong to Lance Corporal Warren.”
Cpl. Sullivan’s civilian attorney, John Andrews, asked the six members of the jury to consider giving his client no jail time. He said the felony conviction will keep Cpl. Sullivan from pursuing his hope of becoming a Massachusetts state trooper.
“At no time did he intend to kill Lance Corporal Warren,” Mr. Andrews told the jury.
Cpl. Sullivan had been working in an administrative job at Camp Pendleton helping re-enlist Marines as the case made its way through the military justice system.
For that work, his superiors recommended him for the Navy Achievement Medal — which he received.
While waiting for the verdict Thursday morning, Lance Cpl. Warren’s father approached a Navy medical corpsman who had testified about the efforts to save his son’s life in the minutes after the shooting.
“I know that you and all the guys there did whatever you all could,” Mr. Warren said softly. “Thank you.”
This story was provided by the North County Times in Oceanside, Escondido, Calif.
Contact writer Teri Figueroa at (760) 740-5442 or e-mail tfigueroa@nctimes.com.
