CINCINNATI (AP) — A man who shocked the nation in 1997 by killing three classmates in a Kentucky high school when he was 14 is fighting to withdraw his guilty plea, saying he was too mentally unfit to accept responsibility at the time.

Attorneys for 29-year-old Michael Carneal (kar-NEEL') and prosecutors with the Kentucky Attorney General's Office will argue their points Wednesday before a three-judge panel of the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati.

The judges will consider whether the appeal is timely. If they find it is, they'd send the case to a lower court to consider whether Carneal should be allowed to withdraw the guilty plea and get a trial.

Carneal is serving a life sentence in the 1997 shooting in a prayer meeting at Heath High School near Paducah in western Kentucky.