ALAMOGORDO, N.M. — A psychologist who examined 16-year-old Cody Posey more than a year after he gunned down his family said the teen admitted accountability for his actions.

"Cody told me he was the one responsible for what he did," adolescent psychiatrist Wade Myers testified, referring to a psychiatric examination he performed on the teen in December 2005. "'I am the one who chose what I did,' in his words."

Since Cody's arrest on July 7, 2004, after he confessed to police that he shot and killed his father, stepmother and stepsister and buried them in a pile of manure, he has contended that the killings occurred in a momentary lapse of judgment precipitated by a lifetime of physical and emotional abuse.

But the state concluded the second day of its rebuttal case Monday by continuing its efforts to prove that Cody methodically planned the killings with a sound mind and his faculties intact.

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For Cody, the distinction between the two could mean the difference between a conviction for first-degree murder, which carries a potential life sentence, or a juvenile disposition for manslaughter, which could mean his release from a juvenile detention facility by his 21^st birthday.

Myers told jurors that Cody recognized he had alternatives, from running away or reporting the alleged abuse to authorities on the morning of the killings. His father had backhanded him while he was cleaning the horse corrals on a ranch owned by journalist Sam Donaldson.

"'Nothing else worked, so I might as well just kill them. So I did,'" Myers said, quoting Cody from the interview.

In between the killings and his arrest, Cody told the doctor that he went hiking and swimming with friends and shot off fireworks.

"He said he was having fun, but at the back of his mind he knew things were 'screwed up,'" Myers said.

The doctor, who specializes in children and adolescents at the University of South Florida's department of psychiatry, testified he found Cody's cognitive functioning above average for a person his age, even though a battery of tests revealed signs of borderline personality disorder.

In an apparent effort to highlight Cody's deviant behavior, Otero County children's court attorney Sandra Grisham asked the witness about two girlfriends Cody had simultaneously, a propensity to skip school, and his occasional use of marijuana and alcohol.

Cody also told the doctor that when he was 8 and in his mother's home, he swallowed a tab of LSD, thinking it was a breath mint, and felt himself hallucinating.

In contrast to testimony from defense psychologists, who cast the teen as an emotional train wreck headed toward tragedy as a result of the alleged abuse, Myers minimized its function in the killings.

"I didn't see evidence that depression had anything to do with this case," Myers testified.

In fact, the psychiatrist said that tests revealed that Cody's major problems were impulsiveness, general ambivalence in his relationships, and controlling his anger.

"He has mixed feels about his father as someone who was mean to him and someone who taught him a lot," Myers testified. "He felt his father loved him but didn't like him ... I think Cody felt somewhat the same toward his father."

Earlier in the day, livestock feed salesman Terry Winkler testified that, in his business transactions with Paul Posey on the Donaldson ranch, the only interactions he observed between the father and son were those one might expect from a cowboy attempting to pass on the trade to his son.

"In agriculture, you really don't have the opportunity to have a time-out. If you don't do what you're told at the time, you can get seriously hurt," Winkler testified. "[Cody] would be corrected, but it was a long way from abuse."

Winkler testified that in his visits to the ranch every six weeks or so, he never heard Paul Posey curse at his son, and took issue with claims from defense witnesses who said Paul's third wife, Tryone, was also verbally abusive toward her stepson.

"I never heard a foul word come out of her mouth, ever," Winkler said, recalling that she always had a batch of cookies waiting for him when he visited. "She was as nice a lady as you could ever meet."

"Was Cody allowed to eat those cookies?" asked Grisham, addressing Cody's claims that his parents often withheld food from him.

"Yes, ma'am," said Winkler.

Terry Winkler testified that he never saw Posey mistreat his son.

Winkler was one of about 40 rebuttal witnesses brought in to refute testimony from Cody and other defense witnesses who said Paul Posey routinely beat and cursed his son unjustifiably.

A man who co-owned the ranch where the Poseys previously worked also testified that he never saw Paul Posey raise his hand toward his son.

On cross-examination, however, David Corn admitted that his family never visited the Posey home in the year or so they lived on the same property.

In fact, apart from the ranch's annual practice of branding calves and maybe two or three mornings each week at the school bus stop, Corn testified that he never saw the Posey family.

Paul Posey's brother, ranch manager Verlin Posey, also said he never saw his brother speak in anger to his son, but admitted that his visits with his younger brother's family were infrequent.

"I'm not going lie to you and say we lived out of each other's hip pocket," said Verlin Posey, who estimated he saw his brother every few weeks and his son less than that.

Defense lawyer Gary Mitchell asked Verlin Posey about a visit the witness and his family paid to his brother's home on July 4, 2004, the day before Cody shot his parents and his 13-year-old stepsister, Marilea.

After a few hours of conversation, Verlin testified that the group left Cody behind to attend a rodeo in town.

"Did you ask if Cody could come along with you to the Smoky Bear Stampede?" asked Mitchell, dressed in his signature Western suit and cowboy boots.

Verlin Posey admitted he did not ask and was unable to speculate why Cody did not join his family.

The state will continue its rebuttal case Tuesday. The trial is being aired live on Court TV and streamed live on the Web at Court TV Extra.