Nearly three years after 18-year-old Cedirick Steele was shot to death in broad daylight as he waited for his mother across the street from a Boston middle school, a Suffolk County homicide prosecutor recounted his last moments.

“It’s March 14, 2007,” Assistant District Attorney Paul Treseler said during opening statements in the re-trial of ANTWAN CARTER (D.O.B. 10/13/88) and DANIEL PINCKNEY, Jr. (D.O.B. 7/4/88), both of Boston’s South End and both charged with first-degree murder in connection with Steele’s death. “A young man locks his keys in his car. A young man walks to the corner of Highland and Centre streets. It’s 3:50 in the afternoon. It’s a beautiful day. There’s a school across the street.”

Treseler paused and looked at the defense table.

“But Cedirick Steele’s day changed when his path crossed with these two men,” Treseler continued. “In a parked car, Daniel Pinckney tells his friend Antwan Carter, ‘Take this gun and shoot. Shoot anyone.’ And Antwan Carter walks up and fires one shot, two shots, three shots, four shots, five shots, six shots, seven shots, eight shots.”

Cedirick Steele died for one reason, Treseler said: He was standing on the wrong corner when Carter and Pinckney were bent on shooting a rival – any rival. Steele was not a member of a rival gang, however, or a member of any gang, Treseler said.

“He didn’t do anything,” the prosecutor told jurors. “He was standing on the street with his keys locked in his car and they shot him.”

Treseler said the plan to kill someone was hatched several hours earlier during a meeting at Pinckney’s house. After that meeting, the two men and Pinckney’s girlfriend piled into Pinckney’s black Pontiac and began circling the block where Steele would soon be gunned down.

When they spotted a young man they believed to be a rival, one of the defendants called out to him, Treseler said.

“Are you with Highland Street?”

That young man didn’t respond, Treseler said. Pinckney continued around the block before allegedly parking on Norfolk Street and giving Carter a pair of gloves and a handgun.

“Get ready to shoot off,” Pinckney allegedly told Carter. “Get ready to shoot off fast.”

“And that’s when he walks right up behind Cedirick Steele,” Treseler said. “That’s where he fires eight times.”

Treseler said Carter returned to the car, joining Pinckney and his girlfriend. They allegedly told the young woman to take the gun and bring it to her mother’s house. She refused, Treseler said, and later told Boston Police what transpired in the car immediately before and immediately after Steele was shot to death.

In the hours and days after the murder, Treseler said, Pinckney undertook to devise an alibi by asking family members to lie about his whereabouts when Steele was killed.

“Antwan Carter takes a different approach,” Treseler said. “Antwan Carter wants the witness dead …. You’ll hear his phone calls. You’ll hear him say, ‘If she’s not history, I’m history.’ You’ll hear him say, ‘You gotta get that [expletive].’”

Today’s proceedings mark the beginning of the men’s second trial. The first proceedings ended in a hung jury on Sept. 22, 2009. Testimony is expected to last about two weeks.

Kara Hayes is the district attorney’s victim-witness advocate assigned to the case. Carter is represented by attorney Barry Wilson and Pinckney is represented by attorney James Greenberg. Judge Thomas Connolly is presiding in courtroom 806 of Suffolk Superior Court.