The teenaged girl on trial for a second-degree murder charge has confessed to killing the 56-year-old victim, but this week, her defence team will try to convince a judge that the girl should be convicted of manslaughter, not murder.

According to a list of agreed facts read into the record this morning by Crown prosecutor David McWhinnie, the girl admits she stabbed the man to death in the early-morning hours of Aug. 8, 2009.

According to police reports made at the time of the stabbing, the girl turned herself in to the RCMP at around 5:00 that morning.

The 17-year-old Whitehorse resident cannot be identified because she is a minor being tried in youth court.

The names of witnesses whose relationships to the girl would tend to identify her are also under a publication ban. Because of this, the Star will not identify the stabbing victim.

McWhinnie told the court that police found the knife in the grass near a home on the 200-block of Rainbow Road in Crestview two days after the killing.

In his "thumbnail” sketch of the Crown's case and the arguments expected from the defence, McWhinnie said the girl's state of mind at the time of the killing will likely be the main issue.

Generally, murder is reduced to manslaughter if the killer acted "in the heat of passion caused by sudden provocation,” as spelled out in the Criminal Code of Canada.

McWhinnie told the court he was prepared to start calling witnesses this morning, but the trial hit a snag when defence lawyer Gordon Coffin said one of the witnesses he had expected to see on the list wasn't there.

The psychiatrist who did a court-ordered assessment on the girl in the months following the homicide has submitted a report to the court, but neither the Crown nor the defence subpoenaed him as a witness.

Coffin told Judge John Faulkner he thought the doctor would be the court's witness because that's who had ordered the assessment.

Faulkner, clearly frustrated with the delay, gave Coffin an hour to come up with an application to add a witness without notice.

"It has the aroma of a ‘Who pays?' issue,” McWhinnie said.

That assessment proved correct when, after the break, Coffin made an application to have the court call the psychiatrist to the stand and therefore pay for his travel and time.

Faulkner said he would make a decision on Coffin's application later today.