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Panhandling for 50 cents or a robbery?

By Jacqueline Dowd

A jury deadlocked on whether to convict a homeless man of robbery after he flashed a toy guy moments before asking a patron in a laundromat for 50 cents to buy a can of beer.

The jury deadlocked 8 to 4 in favor of acquitting Stephen Paul Quiles, a 42-year-old homeless man with a long history of misdemeanor convictions, of a felony robbery charge that could bring him up to five years in prison.

Prosecutors in San Mateo County, California, now must decide whether to retry a case that they contend was a robbery and that the defense maintains was a misinterpreted request for change.

Quiles, unable to post $100,000 bail, remains in jail, where he has been held for almost three months since his robbery arrest.

Read the San Francisco Examiner article here.

Full post as published by the 13th juror on April 12, 2008 (boomark / email).