MARTINEZ, Calif. — A woman who claims she stabbed her husband to death in their $2 million home as an act of self-defense will be defending herself again, this time in an austere California courtroom where she is being tried for first-degree murder.

Defendant Susan Polk, serving as her own attorney after firing four lawyers and enduring one mistrial, has only a case assistant and a jury consultant, both women she recruited, who sit with her at the defense table and are helping her select the 12 men and women who will decide her fate.

As the day wore on, Polk choked up from the pressure when a potential juror expressed concerns about the trial length — possibly two and a half months, according to the judge — and the defendant's decision to defend herself.

"I feel that this is my one chance," Polk said, apologizing as she brushed away tears. "I'm taking a calculated risk, and I realize all of you have things you'd rather do."

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Jury selection will continue Thursday morning, and opening statements are tentatively slated for Monday.

Polk, 48, admits that on Oct. 13, 2002, she stabbed her husband of 20 years, Frank "Felix" Polk, at least five times with a paring knife. Their youngest son, Gabriel, 15 at the time, discovered his father's body the next day and called 911 to report that his father had been shot to death, but authorities later determined Felix Polk was stabbed and had no gunshot wounds.

In exclusive video footage obtained by Court TV's Catherine Crier, Polk tells police during an interrogation on Oct. 14 that she was unaware that her husband was dead, and that she no longer loved him.

She later admitted to killing Felix, 70, in self-defense after he lunged at her first with the knife. He was enraged over their pending divorce, she now claims, and had repeatedly threatened to kill her, their three sons, and her dogs if she ever left him.

Gabriel can also be seen in those exclusive tapes, sitting alone in the police-interrogation room and crying during a cellphone conversation with his brother Adam as he frets over money issues, calls his mother a "crazy bitch" and says he hopes she gets the death penalty.

Prosecutors are expected to argue that Polk threatened Felix with bodily harm just days before his death. After learning a judge had sided with her husband in custody and support payment matters, prosecutors say, Polk attacked him as he sat alone in black briefs, reading in a poolside cottage in their Orinda home.

Family at war

Though self-defense claims in murder cases involving spouses are not uncommon, Polk's trial has garnered national attention for the dark secrets revealed about their marriage, and a killing that has split her three sons apart.

One son, Eli, has stood by his mother's account of terror at the hands of an allegedly Svengali-like husband. Eli, 20, is expected to testify in her defense.

Gabriel, now 19, has turned against his mother and will testify for the state, which means he will face cross-examination by his own mother.

Gabriel and Adam, 23, have also filed a wrongful death suit against their mother.

Polk's last lawyer was renowned defense attorney Daniel Horowitz, whose wife was murdered Oct. 15, days after Polk's trial began. The alleged teenage killer of Horowitz's wife is set to stand trial for murder and will be arraigned in the same courthouse on Thursday.

Superior Court Judge Laurel Brady ultimately declared a mistrial in Polk's first trial, citing excessive media coverage of her attorney's tragedy, and later granted Polk's request to fire Horowitz and represent herself — a decision Polk's mother has told reporters was "a terrible mistake."

That is a sentiment that was expressed by more than one potential juror Wednesday.

"It's like a game of wrestling, where a flyweight is with a heavyweight," one male juror commented when asked why he was uncomfortable with Polk's decision. "If I bet on it, I bet with the heavyweight."

"Why not try to get some celebrity [attorney]?" he suggested to her. "One of the big ones."

Polk laughed along, but later had the juror dismissed from service on a peremptory challenge.

Taking control

If Polk is wary of letting an attorney speak for her, it's likely because as a grown woman, she is now reticent to relinquish the kind of control she appears to have given her husband when she was a young girl.

Susan Polk first saw Dr. Felix Polk in 1972 when she was a 15-year-old suffering from panic attacks and he was a married father of two and a Berkeley psychologist who specialized in adolescent behavior.

By the age of 16, Polk claims, they were having sex. His ethical lapse is glaring, let alone criminal by today's legal standards, but Susan stuck by Felix years after she stopped seeing him as a patient.

Felix Polk eventually left his first wife, a classical pianist, and married Susan in 1982. She was 25 and he was 50.

In court Wednesday, Polk, who is still in police custody, looked and sounded more like a first-year law student than an inmate at a women's detention center. She wore a plaid tartan skirt, black sweater and collared blouse more befitting a schoolgirl, if not for her shoulder-length salt-and-pepper hair and gold-rimmed reading glasses.

Her timid voice belies an articulate and thorough questioning style, and she made forceful arguments to the judge Wednesday about why she felt a certain juror should be dismissed for what appeared to be that juror's bias against "pro per defendants" — those who represent themselves without an attorney.

Early in her questioning Wednesday, she shuffled awkwardly through her papers and apologized for misplacing her notes, but maintained her composure and continued based solely on memory.

While Polk appears confident and rarely shies away from argument — even pushing Judge Brady's patience, arguing about motions that have been tabled for a later date — she lacks the economy of words of a seasoned defense attorney, and her greatest obstacle may be pitting her legal smarts against those of Deputy District Attorney Paul Sequeira.

Polk admitted to jurors during voir dire Wednesday that she only learned "just yesterday" after "looking up" the phrase "hung jury" that the panel must reach a unanimous decision for a verdict to be reached.

In her case, if that verdict is guilty, she faces 25 years to life in prison.