In a soft, even voice, 17-year-old Eric Hancock admitted yesterday that he fatally shot a disabled convenience store clerk during a robbery last summer in Mount Oliver.

"Did you mean to pull the trigger?" his lawyer J. Richard Narvin asked.

"No."

"Did you mean to kill the man?"

"No, sir," the defendant said.

The Greensboro, N.C., native testified at his nonjury homicide trial that the slaying happened because he "just got scared and started to tense up." He netted about $400 and some Newport cigarettes in the heist, which he said he pulled off jointly with an older cousin who was standing guard outside the A&E Deli Food Mart on Brownsville Road.

His cousin, Jeremy Hancock, was not charged in the case.

As relatives of the slain clerk, Jamal Mouzaffar, wept in the front row of the court gallery, Mr. Hancock stated, "I just wish I could take it all back."

The 28-year-old victim, a native of Serghaya, Syria, died of a single gunshot wound to the chest.

Co-defense counsel Veronica Brestensky, of the Office of Conflict Counsel, told Common Pleas Judge Jeffrey A. Manning in her closing argument: "I don't think I need to explain to the court how unusual a situation we all just witnessed: A defendant confessing to the crime he's charged with ... [He] takes the stand and says, 'I did it. I wish I could take it all back.' "

She asked that the judge show mercy on Mr. Hancock, who was 16 at the time of the robbery, because he eventually turned himself in to police, gave them a taped confession and led them to most of the evidence presented in court against him. The defense asked for a conviction of third-degree homicide.

Assistant District Attorney Lisa Pellegrini told the judge she drew a different picture of Eric Hancock from his courtroom testimony and his taped confession: "What I saw was a cold, emotionless individual who -- like he was speaking about the color of this table -- admitted to pulling the trigger and killing a man for a couple hundred dollars."

She said the killing was "calm, intentional and pre-planned," based on the defendant's own statement that he discussed robbing a store for about a week with his cousin Jeremy, cut eye holes in the mask he wore, brought the .32-caliber revolver he said Jeremy gave him and shot an amputee who was surrendering in a vital body part.

She asked the judge to find him guilty of first-degree murder, which means she must show the attack was premeditated and he had a specific intent to kill.

Judge Manning said he would deliver his verdict this morning.