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 Sergeant Lawrence Hutchins III, 31, was initially convicted of
murder, larceny and making false statements in 2007 over the killing
of the civilian, a disabled former Iraqi police officer. His
conviction was later overturned.
"This case is about a sergeant who came up with a plan to grab
someone out of their bed in the middle of the night, ziptie him and
kill him," Major Samson Newsome told the jury in opening arguments.
Prosecutors say Hutchins was the leader of a squad of Marines who
planned a mission aimed at stopping militants' use of improvised
bombs in the Iraqi village of Hamdania in the early morning hours of
April 26, 2006.
When they couldn't find the suspected bomber, witnesses said, they
went to a nearby house and took a disabled former police officer who
was not a suspect.
 Witnesses said Hutchins and other Marines shot 52-year-old Hashim
Ibrahim Awad, a father of 11 and grandfather of four, and placed an
AK-47 and a shovel next to the corpse to suggest he had been
planting a bomb.
The case touched off a furor in both the United States and Iraq.
Hutchins's defense lawyer, Chris Oprison, said the case was flimsy
and being pursued for political reasons, noting that the case
proceeded after a marine corps massacre of civilians came to light.
"Sergeant Hutchins was out there to do his job, to execute his
mission and to bring his men home alive," Oprison said. "Political
and diplomatic pressure to make a fall guy on this case, right after
Haditha, was palpable."
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In 2007, a military jury found Hutchins guilty of unpremeditated
murder and other crimes. He was sentenced to 15 years in prison,
later reduced to 11. But a military court overturned his conviction
in 2010, finding that a statement he gave while in custody should
have been ruled inadmissible.
A military appeals court later reinstated his conviction then
overturned it again in 2013 because Hutchins was denied access to a
lawyer for a week early in the investigation.
Hutchins, who spent six years in confinement pending appeal, could
be sentenced to serve out the remainder of his 11-year term.
(Editing by Cynthia Johnston, Eric Walsh and Sandra Maler)
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