Mistrial declared in strangulation case

[mitchtv]

INDIO – With jurors deadlocked, a mistrial was declared Monday in the murder trial of a homeless man charged with the strangulation death of an 85-year-old retired attorney during a sexual encounter in Palm Desert.
The jury convicted Michael Salvador Anunciation, 48, of two counts of misdemeanor petty theft. But the seven-woman, five-man jury deadlocked on a vote of 8-4 in favor of convicting Anunciation of second-degree murder for the killing of Laguna Beach resident Garvin F. Shallenberger in 2006.
>>But Deputy Public Defender David Prendergast told jurors that the prosecution could not prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant did not kill as the result of “heat of passion.” Prendergast, who argued that choking Shallenberger was his client's “primal reaction” to the lawyer biting his penis during oral sex, said authorities never took Anunciation to a doctor to determine whether his penis had actually been bitten.
misdemeanor indeed
more...

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/riverside/20080721-1223-rivlawyer.html