LAS VEGAS — Lawyers for a Reno man accused of murdering his estranged wife and gunning down the judge handling their divorce asserted for the first time in opening statements Wednesday that his wife sparked the violence when she tried to shoot him with a pistol.

Darren Mack, a former pawn shop owner with a personal fortune that once approached $10 million, has long claimed he was acting in self-defense when in 2006 he stabbed his wife, Charla, but before his attorneys' opening statements, he had never alleged that she was armed with a gun.

As Mack looked on intently from the defense table, his lawyers told the panel that, during a fight about the couple's million-dollar divorce settlement, Charla Mack, 39, grabbed an heirloom pistol that belonged to her husband, pointed it at him and pulled the trigger. The weapon misfired, the lawyer said, but Mack attacked his wife with a knife, believing he had been shot.

"The terror for Darren is overwhelming," attorney Scott Freeman said, describing the moment he said the couple tussled in Mack's garage.

The attorney told jurors the killing caused Mack to snap "like a rubber band" after the death. He subsequently shot and injured Washoe County Family Court Judge Chuck Weller while experiencing a delusional disorder that prevented him from knowing wrong from right, a second lawyer told jurors.

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The defense lawyers asked jurors to acquit him in the murder of his wife on the basis of self-defense and to find Mack not guilty by reason of insanity in the attempted murder of the judge.

The judge presiding over the trial revealed Wednesday that Mack, 46, insisted on the rare split defense over the objections of his lawyers, who had urged him to pursue the insanity defense to both counts.

Clark County District Court Judge Douglas Herndon questioned Mack about his decision to disregard his counsel.

"Against their advice, you wish to pursue the two defenses to two different acts. Is that correct?" asked Herndon.

"Yes," Mack replied firmly.

If convicted of first-degree murder and attempted murder, Mack faces a sentence ranging from 20 years to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

The trial was moved from Reno to Las Vegas after lawyers struggled to find impartial jurors for the high-profile case.

Prosecutors contend Mack killed his wife and tried to kill Weller because he felt he had been treated unfairly by the judge and had "seller's remorse" for going along with the hefty divorce settlement proposed by his lawyers.

In his opening statement, Chief Deputy District Attorney Robert Daskas showed jurors clips of a video in which Mack was interviewed by members of a fathers' rights group. He railed against Weller and the family court system, saying at one point that the injustices of his divorce were like those of the American colonists fighting the British — only worse.

"What I'm trying to get across is that it's time to take a stand," he said.

Daskas said evidence, including a "to-do" list found on Mack's kitchen table, showed he planned the crimes. The prosecutor said one of the listed tasks, "end problem" was a "crude and innocuous" term for killing his wife.

The prosecutor spoke to jurors before the defense alleged that Charla Mack wielded a gun, but he suggested that a claim of self-defense was not credible.

"He did not have an injury on his body. Not a cut, not a scratch, not a nick," said Daskas.

He said Mack, at 6 feet tall and 200 pounds, could have easily overpowered his 5-foot-4-inch, 120-pound wife.

The defense, however, insisted Charla Mack had a long history of physical violence against her husband, including breaking his finger while sparring in martial arts class.

Defense attorney David Chesnoff said the relationship grew more fraught because of drug use by both Macks and their unorthodox sexual practices.

Both sides acknowledged that the Macks engaged in partner-swapping, although the sides gave jurors differing views on who instigated the behavior.

The prosecutor said Charla Mack "reluctantly agreed" to participate in swinging while Freeman, the defense attorney, said the defendant went along with his wife's "fantasies."

Chesnoff said that Darren Mack's rants to friends and acquaintances about Weller and the divorce were proof of his tenuous mental decline. He said Mack had convinced himself that the judge was sleeping with his wife and that lawyers were conspiring against him. Pointing to the video in which he compared family court to the Revolutionary War, the lawyer said, "If that is not delusional, I don't know what is."

He said Mack had started carrying a knife for protection after a medium predicted that his wife would stab him in the back.

A forensic pathologist testified that Charla Mack died from a wound to her upper chest and suffered five or six other wounds on her arms and legs. Dr. Katherine Raven said the injuries on her arms appeared to be defensive wounds sustained as she tried to block the knife.

A cousin of the defendant, Cory Schmidt, also testified that he saw Mack about a half hour before the fatal meeting and he was behaving normally.

On cross-examination, Schmidt, who works in the family pawn business, said he once saw Charla Mack punch her husband during a fight on a cruise ship.

Testimony resumes Thursday. The trial is being streamed live.