Accused murderer Andrew Rogers will stand trial today, 410 days after the bludgeoning death of Penn State student Youngcheol Park in Rogers' kitchen.

Rogers, 29, of 224 Nimitz Ave., faces first- and third-degree homicide charges in connection with the February 2006 beating death of Park, with whom he said he was doing cocaine at the time. Rogers maintains that he acted in self-defense.

The trial is currently scheduled to take all week, and Centre County District Attorney Michael Madeira has said he believes it will take about three and a half days for the Commonwealth to call all its witnesses.

Defense attorney David Crowley said he plans to call witnesses including police officers, Rogers' roommate and a Sheetz worker who saw Rogers shortly after the incident. It remains unclear whether Rogers will testify on his own behalf, though he requested the chance to do so from his attorney.

Both Madeira and Centre County Judge Bradley P. Lunsford will be trying a murder case for the first time in their individual capacities.

Madeira will be the lead prosecutor as the district attorney, to which he was initially elected in 2005. He said he was last involved in a murder trial about 15 years ago, as a young assistant sitting beside a prosecutor with much more experience.

"I'm looking forward to it ... in the sense that I suspect Lunsford is too -- it's an important case," Madeira said. "By that I mean it's important to the justice system when we have a crime of this nature, it's important to the defendant ... it's important that we do this right. We are looking for justice even if we don't all agree on what that is."

Madeira said he argued some significant drug cases while working for more than a decade in the Attorney General's office, but there is nothing quite like a homicide trial.

"This isn't about Michael Madeira's first homicide case ... this isn't about his first chance to define himself as a DA, that is not what this is about -- this is about getting it right," he said.

Lunsford became the newest Centre County judge when he was elected in 2005 to serve as a county's fourth judge. Since that time, he notably presided over the Scott Paxson case, in which the former football player pleaded out of aggravated indecent assault and aggravated assault charges.

If convicted of first-degree murder, Rogers could face life in prison.

Rogers has consistently told police that a third man named "Sweet" instigated the fight and forced Rogers to physically defend himself -- a story that, according to the court, the Commonwealth has the burden of disproving at trial.

On Feb. 20, a long-awaited crime lab report was turned over to the defense, which stated that three bloody footprints found in Rogers' kitchen after the killing could not be linked to either Park or Rogers. Defense attorney David Crowley called the report the "biggest [development in the case] so far."

Madeira has maintained that there are other explanations for the prints, but said any specific theory contradicting Rogers' account of a third person at the scene will be unveiled in front of the jury.