Will the Jury Be Buffalo'd by Lame Abuse Claims?

The prosecution and defense lay out their case in the opening days of the "Mo" Hassan beheading trial in Buffalo:

The Prosecution painted Mo Hassan as a controlling husband who's actions and threats led his wife to obtain an order of protection. They said he lured his wife to the Bridges Television station they owned by asking her to drop off laundry, according to the statement he told her he would not be there. That, according to prosecutors, is when he came up behind her with two hunting knives he had recently purchased and stabbed her 40 times, then beheaded her with enough force that cut marks were made in the floor. The whole attack took 47 seconds.

The defense then layed out its case, saying that Mo Hassan was an abused husband, who was subjected to verbal abuse and threats of phyiscal violence. Defense attorney Jeremy Schwartz said that Assiya Hassan had threatened to kill her husband by poisoning. He says that on the day of the fatal attack, Assiya threatened him with a knife. He said that Mo Hassan feared for his life and when he met his wife at the tv studio later that day, he thought she had a knife and snapped.

"I was so afraid I she had a knife that I stabbed her 40 times and then cut off her head"? I'd seriously like to know how (Jewish?) lawyer Schwartz can make such a claim without breaking out into a bad case of the giggles.