James Carter Jr. sits Friday between his lawyers, listening to opening arguments in his murder trial. He is accused of taking part, with Swuave Lopez, in the May murder of fellow teenager Kevin Staheli. Photo by Ralph Fountain.

It took attorneys and District Judge Lee Gates three days to seat a jury to try a 17-year-old accused of murdering another teenager and burning his body last summer.

Most of the first 50 potential jurors brought in earlier this week raised their hands when Gates asked them whether they had heard of James Carter Jr.'s case.

His would-be co-defendant, 17-year-old Swuave Lopez, was handcuffed and running from police in May when two officers shot him in the back and killed him, an event that generated a lot of publicity.

Carter, boyish-looking in an oversized white button-down shirt and loose black slacks, sat Friday with his attorney, Conrad Claus, as his trial began.

Prosecutors told jurors how Lopez and Carter killed 18-year-old Kyle Staheli on May 10 to steal his 1996 Ford Mustang.

"The plan was to smoke a couple of joints and then to whip out his (Lopez's) gun to take the car and to shoot Kyle," prosecutor Tim Fattig said during opening statements Friday.

Authorities say Lopez and Carter called Staheli for a ride that evening. They drove to a remote desert area at the base of Sunrise Mountain and smoked pot and talked about girls, according to the police report.

When they got out of the car, Lopez tried to force Staheli in the trunk. When he would not climb in, Lopez ordered him to stand on a dirt mound.

Carter told police different versions of how much he saw and heard of the killing. At one point, he explained that he walked away to urinate and heard a shot as Staheli pleaded, "Stop playing."

He heard a second shot, and again Staheli said, "Stop playing."

Then he heard a third and final shot.

The coroner found multiple gunshots wounds to Staheli's body.

Fattig said Lopez and Carter, the driver, then drove away in the Mustang. Carter dropped Lopez off at an apartment and took the car home.

Carter and Lopez were arrested together at a friend's residence May 13.

After Carter had been taken to Las Vegas police's homicide office for an interview, Lopez, left handcuffed in the front seat of a police car, managed to escape. During the subsequent chase, two officers shot him.

Claus said his during opening statements to the jury that his client was standing trial alone for Lopez's crimes.

"My client is charged with actions he didn't do," he said.

Lopez wanted to be treated as a hit man, and after the slaying, his peers feared him, Claus said. Lopez told people that he, not Carter, had murdered Staheli.

According to the police report, which includes a statement from Carter's friend Derrick Holloway, who was 18 at the time, Carter and Lopez plotted days before the murder to kill Staheli and steal his Mustang.

Holloway said Carter called him the morning after Staheli was killed and asked him to give the Mustang, which wouldn't start, a jump.

The two raced their cars afterward before Holloway went to school. Fattig said that after Holloway drove off, Carter went to pick up Lopez to get gasoline to burn Staheli's body.

Later that day, Carter directed Holloway to take him to the location of the body.

"He (Carter) describes his (Staheli's) face as being all gone, that if you stepped on him, he'd turn to ash," Fattig said of Carter's description to Holloway, who said he did not see the corpse.

The morning of May 12, Holloway picked up Lopez after he crashed the Mustang into a light pole and abandoned the vehicle.

"He (Holloway) has got a lot to hide, and he's the state's star witness," Claus said.