UPDATE: Phillips argues he never admitted intent to kill

ROCHESTER -- A former fugitive convicted of killing a New York state trooper and wounding two others in 2006 argued in an appeal Monday that he never admitted in his plea his intention to kill anyone.

Ralph "Bucky" Phillips is serving a life sentence without possibility of parole after telling a judge in November 2006 that he was "guilty as hell" of a litany of charges. But Phillips, 46, maintains he entered the pleas only because he got bad advice from a court-appointed lawyer.

At a hearing before the Appellate Division of state Supreme Court, his attorney maintained that Phillips never admitted "he intended to kill anyone" nor "knew or reasonably should have known" the two men he shot as they staked out his former girlfriend's home in rural Chautauqua County were police officers.