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MALONE - The lawyer for a man being charged with assault in a 2008 incident in which a state trooper was shot in the hand is arguing that police didn't have a right to order him to stop in the first place.

"The evidence will show my client is not charged with violating any law," Greg LaDuke, lawyer for Donald McCray, said in his opening statement Thursday.

The trial, with Franklin County Judge Robert Main presiding, will resume at 9 a.m. today and is expected to extend into next week.

The incident in August 2008 came about after authorities had been searching for McCray, who had called 911 and threatened to kill himself. They found him on the Raquette River near Coreys.

After an hour-long, boat-to-boat negotiation, McCray began to move the 50-caliber muzzle-loading rifle he was pointing at his head, and state Trooper George Stannard grabbed at the gun. As they struggled over it, it went off. The bullet struck Stannard in the hand, inflicting "a serious physical injury he will have to deal with for the rest of his life," Franklin County Assistant District Attorney Jack Delehanty said in his opening statement.

McCray is being charged with assault on a police officer and second-degree criminal use of a firearm. Both are class C felonies and carry a possible sentence of three-and-a-half to 15 years in prison.

The indictment says McCray intended to "prevent a police officer from performing his lawful duty."

LaDuke is arguing, however, that Trooper Timothy Snickles was not performing a lawful duty when he ordered McCray to stop his canoe and come talk to him and state Department of Environmental Conservation Officer Michael Phelps.

"What law was my client breaking at that time to have an officer threaten to shoot his boat?" LaDuke said while cross-examining Phelps.

Phelps said he didn't feel threatened by McCray and didn't see his gun. He said, however, that he thought the urgent circumstances justified the order to stop and that it was therefore a lawful command.

The first eight of 26 witnesses testified Thursday. The first four witnesses were three 911 workers, two from Franklin County and one from Essex County, and a switchboard operator who works at Sunmount Developmental Disabilities Services Office in Tupper Lake. They talked about the calls McCray made on Aug. 27 and 28, 2008, threatening suicide and talking about the warrant out for his arrest for $10,000 in unpaid child support.

Delehanty played the 911 tapes in court. McCray said in one that he had taken 15 to 20 pills of diazepam, an anxiety medication, and 30 pills of a blood-pressure medication. He also said he had the gun.

He gave varying locations of his whereabouts, saying in one call he was in the woods off state Route 74 in the town of Ticonderoga, but the calls were pinpointed as coming from somewhere near the end of Coreys Road. State police were notified and searched the area with ECOs and forest rangers, finding McCray's maroon Isuzu Trooper parked on a snowmobile trail off the road.

Acting on information that he might be there, Phelps went to the Stony Creek lean-to with several troopers, including Snickles, who was dressed in camouflage and armed with a sniper rifle. They found freshly cut wood, and Phelps saw a man leaving the shore in a canoe, with camping gear.

Phelps asked McCray his name; he said "Mark." Phelps asked if he could talk to him.

"I don't think so," McCray said as he paddled away.

Snickles then threatened to shoot if McCray didn't stop, adding that he would shoot a hole in the canoe. McCray asked him not to shoot but kept paddling.

Snickles said he had hoped to bluff McCray into stopping. He said police are only allowed to shoot in case of an imminent threat to others.

Phelps notified the others, and forest ranger Julie Harjung and Troopers Stannard and Dustin Fleishman went onto the river in a DEC motorboat to find McCray.

Negotiators had been called; they arrived shortly after Stannard was shot.

LaDuke also asked four of the witnesses - Snickles, Phelps, state Trooper Frank Whitelaw and former Essex County dispatcher Eric Vorand - about their training to deal with mental health issues. Vorand's training touched on mental health issues, he said, and the training the other three had at the state Police Academy also involves mental health and dealing with suicidal people.

The state police manual contains nothing about suicidal people, and in his opening statement, LaDuke said the state police have no formal rules for how to deal with a suicidal person.