BELFAST – It took less than two hours for a jury to find Mike Nickerson not guilty Wednesday afternoon in the stabbing death of his brother.

The jury considered manslaughter, elevated aggravated assault and aggravated assault charges, but found him not guilty on all three.

Nickerson, 50, testified in his own defense for about 40 minutes Wednesday morning in Waldo County Superior Court, admitting he had stabbed his brother Charlie, 44, on Nov. 12.

But under cross examination by Assistant Attorney General Fern LaRochelle, Nickerson continued to maintain that his actions – including reaching for a knife and removing it from its sheath as Charlie punched him – were justified.

“I knew the knife was there, and I wanted to stop him from hitting me,” Nickerson said.

LaRochelle confronted him with recorded statements he made to a 911 dispatcher just after the stabbing, played for the jury on Tuesday, in which Nickerson said Charlie “hit me a couple of times.”

Nickerson replied that he was “dazed” when he said that to the dispatcher.

“He had hit me at least seven times before I grabbed the knife,” he told LaRochelle on Wednesday.

LaRochelle showed Nickerson police photos of a table from which Nickerson had grabbed the knife while his brother, according to testimony, was pinning him to a chair with his body, punching him. The prosecutor said the photo showed a coffee cup and beer cans undisturbed, which would have been unlikely if Nickerson had grabbed the knife from the table during the struggle.

The prosecution insisted that Nickerson had the knife, outside its sheath, concealed in the chair’s cushion in anticipation of the attack.

Defense attorney Steven Peterson in his closing argument said Charlie used potentially deadly force in punching his brother repeatedly in the head and so Mike was justified in the severity of his defense.

While the jury was on a break, the attorney also tried to persuade Justice Nancy Mills to include in her instructions to the jury that Nickerson was entitled by law to use deadly force in self-defense, even if the punches did not constitute a potentially deadly threat, because Charlie attacked Mike in his room. A portion of law allows for such a defense, he said.

Peterson suggested the room could be seen as a separate dwelling place within the house the men shared with their children, but Mills ruled against the attorney, saying Charlie owned the house and was expected to have the right to enter Mike’s room.

After the verdict, Peterson said he believed his decision to highlight Charlie attacking Mike in Mike’s room resonated with the jury.

“I saw some of them nodding their heads,” he said, when he described that part of the defense in his closing argument.

Peterson also stressed to the jury Charlie’s threats against Mike’s children, testified to by Mike and his son and daughter on Wednesday. Charlie, according to the testimony, had threatened to strike Mike’s 13-year-old daughter “upside the head” just before the fateful conflict.

Nickerson did not try to kill his brother, Peterson said in his closing, as shown by his calling 911 to summon an ambulance.

“He did what he had to do to stop the pummeling,” the attorney told jurors.

LaRochelle, in his closing, reminded jurors of testimony on Tuesday by the state’s deputy medical examiner, who said one of the wounds penetrated Charlie’s chest deeper than the length of the knife’s blade, indicating, the prosecutor said, the force of Mike’s stabbing motion.

The brothers had fought before, and Charlie had punched Mike before, LaRochelle said, so the conflict on Nov. 12 was not like a stranger bursting into one’s home.

“They had a history, they didn’t get along. We understand that,” LaRochelle said, but “why? Why did he have to reach for that knife and stab him?”

Nickerson has been at the Waldo County Jail since his arrest three days after the incident, unable to make bail. He was released shortly after the acquittal.

The jury’s decision is reminiscent of a similar case, also decided by a Waldo County jury, in 2005.

Jerome Reynolds of Brooks admitted to fatally shooting Janet Bacon, 60, when she barged into his home where he and his father were watching a Red Sox game on Sept. 29, 2004. Reynolds’ father had been dating the woman, and the son testified that he acted in his father’s defense.