PALM BEACH, Fla. (Court TV) — Nathaniel Brazill, the 14-year-old boy on trial for murdering a favorite teacher, will take the stand in his own defense, his lawyer said Tuesday.

"Nathaniel's going to testify in this case. I'll tell you that right now," defense lawyer Robert Udell told prospective jurors.

Opening statements in the trial are set to begin at 8:45 am ET Wednesday. The selection of a panel of 14 jurors was completed on Tuesday after a tense session of peremptory strikes from both parties.

The defendant quietly watched as prospective jurors were questioned, his shoulders hunched awkwardly over the defense table as he swiveled his chair slightly.

After the twelve jurors and two alternates had been seated, Palm Beach County Circuit Judge Richard Wennet looked straight at Brazill and asked him, "Are these the people you want to judge you?"

"Yes, sir," the boy replied without hesitation.

Brazill is being tried as an adult for first-degree murder for shooting Barry Grunow, his seventh grade English teacher, in the doorway of his classroom on May 26, 2000. The teenager, then 13, is also charged with aggravated assault for pointing the gun at another teacher after the shooting.

The shooting occurred after Brazill was sent home early on the last day of school before summer vacation. Upset that he would not be able to say goodbye to a girl he had a crush on, Brazill returned to school with a gun and demanded that Grunow let him see her. When rebuffed, the boy pulled his firearm and shot the teacher in the face.

The prosecution has not discussed a motive, but they are expected to argue that Brazill brought the gun to school with the intent to kill. The defense maintains that the gun went off accidentally, and that Brazill only wanted to scare Grunow.

Brazill's jury consists of nine women and three women. Seven members of the panel are white, three are black and two Hispanic. Though Brazill is black and Grunow white, Udell told prospective jurors that race will not play a factor in the trial.

"We're not playing the race card. You play the race card when you're in L.A.," the lawyer said, alluding to the O.J. Simpson case.

The shooting took place at a middle school in Lake Worth, Florida, a racially diverse middle-class community just south of West Palm Beach.

Udell's jury questions hinted at a few of the points he will likely make while presenting Brazill's case; at times his queries seemed like a sneak preview of an opening statement.

On Monday, prosecutor Marc Shiner impressed upon potential jurors that Florida law provides for two ways to find a defendant guilty of first-degree murder—either by deciding that the act was premeditated or by finding that the killing occurred during the commission of another felony.

Udell told jurors that first-degree murder was unlikely to be their only option. "You may hear about second-degree murder, third-degree murder, manslaughter, aggravated assault," the lawyer said. "It's probably not going to be an all or nothing case. You're going to have some options."

Although Brazill is charged with first-degree murder, lawyers from both sides will have a chance to ask the judge to give the jury other options after the evidence is presented.

Both the defense and the prosecution seemed content with the jury that will weigh these and other choices during the course of the trial. Neither side took up Judge Wennet's offer to strike more jurors from the panel.

"We got a good cross section of the community. We got a good jury," Udell said outside the courtroom. The prosecution has declined to comment on any aspect of the case until the trial is over.

After the jurors left the courtroom on Tuesday afternoon, Brazill made a request of the judge that made him sound like a typical teenager.

"Judge, the lunch that they give here is nasty and I was wondering whether I could bring something from the jail," he said, standing behind the defense table and referring to the food given to prisoners in the courthouse's holding cells.

The judge immediately denied the request. "There are probably about 1,000 inmates that the sheriff of Palm Beach County is responsible for providing subsistence to," Wennet replied. "It is not the responsibility of this court to tell the sheriff how to do it."

The trial will be aired live on Court TV.