CAMP PENDETON -- A third Marine pleaded guilty to reduced charges this morning in the slaying of an Iraqi civilian, becoming the fourth of eight locally based troops to admit wrongdoing in the case.

Lance Cpl. Jerry E. Shumate Jr. pleaded guilty to aggravated assault and conspiracy to obstruct justice. Original charges of murder, kidnapping, conspiracy and related offense will be dismissed.

Shumate's guilty pleas were accepted after he told the military judge, Lt. Col. Jeffrey Meeks, that he was voluntarily entering the pleas.

The hearing is continuing today with Meeks slated to hear testimony from Shumate describing his role in the April 26 shooting death of Hashim Ibrahim Awad, and he also will hear from the Matlock, Wash., native's father and sister.

After that, the defense and prosecution will present arguments over what sentence Shumate should receive. Meeks will consider those arguments and then pronounce the jail term he believes the 21-year-old lance corporal should serve.

That sentence will be set aside, however, as a result of Shumate's plea agreement with Lt. Gen. James N. Mattis, the convening authority over the case as head of Camp Pendleton's I Marine Expeditionary Force.

The agreement that Shumate's attorneys arranged with prosecutors and Mattis includes the actual sentence he will be ordered to serve, but it will not be revealed until after Meeks pronounces his recommended sentence.

Shumate was on his first tour in Iraq when he and six other Marines and a Navy corpsman from Camp Pendleton's 3rd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment seized the 52-year-old Awad from his home in the village of Hamdania, bound and gagged him and then shot him to death.

The squad then reported that Awad was an insurgent who was in the midst of planting a roadside bomb when he was killed.

Two other Marines, Lance Cpl. Tyler Jackson and Pfc. John Jodka III, also pleaded guilty to aggravated assault and conspiracy to obstruct justice and were sentenced to 21 months and 18 months respectively.

The squad's medical corpsman, Petty Officer Melson Bacos, pleaded guilty to kidnapping and conspiracy to kidnap and make false official statements and was sentenced to 12 months in the brig.

As the Shumate hearing was under way, a hearing for another defendant was continuing in an adjacent courtroom. In that hearing, attorneys for Lance Cpl. Robert Pennington are arguing to have him released from the brig pending trial.

On Monday, Pennington testified that he asked for but was not provided with an attorney when questioned about the Awad killing by Naval Criminal Investigative Service agents at Camp Fallujah in Iraq in May. The military judge presiding over Pennington's case is being asked by his attorneys to suppress that statement because of their contention he sought but was not provided with an attorney, a violation of a criminal suspect's rights.

Two NCIS agents contradicted Pennington's testimony, however, when they testified Monday, saying the native of the town Mukilteo, Wash., never asked for an attorney and voluntarily made implicating statements.

Contact staff writer Mark Walker at (760) 740-3529 or mlwalker@nctimes.com.