Defence lawyers are asking a Toronto jury to find sex worker Moka Dawkins not guilty of second-degree murder because she was acting in self-defence when she fatally stabbed a client with a violent history.

The defence position is that a drunken Jamie Foster stabbed Dawkins, a transgender woman who was sworn in under the name Curtis Gordon Dawkins, in the face because he was upset that she was trying to leave his Rose Ave. apartment on the night of Aug. 3, 2015.

“(Dawkins) manages to get the knife ... and stabs him to stop him from coming at her. To save her life. To defend herself. She believes that he was going to kill her,” Jennifer Penman said during her final arguments.

Jurors will have three options, the lawyer explained: guilty as charged of second-degree murder, not guilty of second-degree murder but guilty of manslaughter, or not guilty of any criminal offence.

Penman also went over Foster’s rap sheet, which included three convictions for domestic violence and a fourth conviction of assault with a weapon after he pulled a knife and stabbed someone who declined to give him a lighter.

“Although Ms. Dawkins didn’t know of Foster’s violent past, you can use the evidence of his violent past when considering whether Moka was telling the truth when she said that Mr. Foster attacked her with the knife,” Penman said.

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She also asked the jury to consider the backdrop to the case. Dawkins, 28, grew up in a rough Montreal neighbourhood where she experienced violence after she started publicly identifying as a female. The violence intensified after she started working as a transgender sex worker there and in Toronto, Penman said.

“Clearly she lives in a world that I’m going to guess is foreign to most if not all of us,” she said.

If the self-defence argument is rejected, the jurors will also have the option of finding Dawkins did what she did because she was provoked after being suddenly stabbed in the face, Penman said.

“It is our position that Ms. Dawkins acted in self-defence. But if you reject that argument, and find that she reacted suddenly to Mr. Foster’s attack, in the heat of the moment before she regained her self-control, you would find her not guilty of murder, but guilty of manslaughter.”

The jury is expected to begin deliberations next week.

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