When a longstanding verbal dispute between Martin Frank and Kenneth Charles Jensen turned physical, things came to a quick end four years ago.

Jensen, now 61, fired his .357 Magnum pistol through a leather pouch and struck Frank in the chest, killing him.

Jensen maintains he was fearful for his own safety after numerous threats and finally Frank’s grabbing of the handlebars of his bicycle on Aug. 8, 2001.

Deputy prosecutor David Hiltner, however, on Tuesday asked a Snohomish County Superior Court jury to question whether Jensen was legitimately defending himself.

“I’ll be frank with you. It will all come down to whether he acted in self-defense and if he acted reasonably in self-defense,” Hiltner told jurors.

Public defender Ann Frost asked jurors to put themselves in Jensen’s shoes.

“For three years, Ken Jensen lived in a world in which he was taunted and threatened by Frank every time he saw him,” Frost said.

It is the third time Jensen has come to trial for the killing.

In December 2001, jurors could not reach a unanimous decision after more than a day of deliberation. Judge George Bowden declared a mistrial.

In April 2002, a second jury convicted Jensen of second-degree murder under the theory that the death occurred during an assault and Jensen didn’t intend to kill Frank. Bowden sentenced him to 16 years in prison while pointing out that a readily available gun was a prime reason for the death.

The conviction eventually was overturned by two state Supreme Court decisions that disallowed that murder theory. The decisions allowed scores of murder convicts around the state to come back to their original courts.

This time, Hiltner filed second-degree murder charges, alleging that Jensen intended to kill Frank.

Hiltner told jurors Frank was no angel, having engaged in name-calling against Jensen.

In fact, he termed the dispute a “rather immature bickering going on, and adults were acting like children on both sides.”

He said the “war of words escalated to a warning shot with a .357 Magnum – to Mr. Frank’s chest at close range.”

His actions, Hiltner added, “were way beyond the norm.”

Frost said she and co-counsel Natalie Tarantino will try to put jurors in a world in which Jensen lived for years – a world of name-calling, profanities, obscene gestures and threats.

When Frank grabbed the bicycle’s handlebars and Jensen started to lose his balance, “he had no alternative but to shoot,” Frost said.

The trial in Judge Linda Krese’s court is expected to conclude late this week.

Reporter Jim Haley: 425-339-3447 or haley@heraldnet.com.