A proposed plea agreement could mean the Marine accused of shooting Lance Cpl. Kristopher Cody Warren could serve less than a year.

Robin Patterson, Warren's mother, said she was "absolutely appalled" when she received the phone call late Monday night.

"They are telling us Cody's life doesn't matter," she said. Warren was in the radio room where his unit was stationed in Iraq when Cpl. Douglas Michael Sullivan pointed a rifle at the Gordon Central High School graduate and fired. He was charged with culpable negligence but if the plea deal is accepted by the presiding judge, it could be lowered to negligent homicide.

According to Patterson, the prosecution told her Douglas could be sentenced to two years under the plea agree-ment and serve less than a year. She added they would know Friday if the judge accepted the agreement.

"They said they are basing it on similar cases, but (Cody) isn't a statistic," she said in a phone interview. "They wanted our view but told us there was really nothing we could do."

Patterson said she found out recently the gag order she thought was on the whole trial was actually only on the military, but she feels that her rights, and those of Joe Warren, Warren's father, have been stripped away.

In a copy of the Stipulation of Facts, the military equivalent of an affidavit, Sullivan admitted "that (Warren's) death resulted from my act in shooting Lance Corporal Kristopher C. Warren in the neck with a 5.56mm round from a M-4 service rifle on November 9, 2006 . . .(and) was unlawful."

"Despite never checking to ensure that the weapon was unloaded, I pulled the trigger while sighted in on LCpl Warren's face. The weapon discharged."

She said her frustration mounted when the prosecution told her that if the case went to trial, there was a chance Sullivan could serve less than a year.

"Joe told (the prosecutor) they might as well leave (Sullivan) in the military and give him a medal because they are acting like all he did was act up in class," Patterson said.

"I feel like they are saying you can kill a fellow Marine and walk free from it," she added.

The court martial has been rescheduled several times already and is now set for March 4-7 in California.