INDIO – In a sign that jurors are struggling to reach a verdict, attorneys will deliver more closing arguments Monday in the trial of a homeless man charged with the strangulation murder of an 85-year-old retired attorney during a sexual encounter in Palm Desert.

Michael Salvador Anunciation, 48, faces 25 years to life in prison if convicted of murder, grand theft and robbery for the choking death of Laguna Beach resident Garvin F. Shallenberger.

Jurors deliberated for a third day on Friday, but failed to reach a verdict. After speaking with panelists and attorneys behind closed doors, Riverside County Superior Court Judge James S. Hawkins agreed to give the prosecutor and defense attorney 15 minutes to deliver additional closing arguments.

It was not immediately clear what issue was causing confusion among jurors.

After returning from their lunch break on Friday, jurors submitted a question to the judge, who then met with the attorneys. A protective order in effect throughout the trial prevents them from publicly discussing the case.

When jurors left the courtroom late Friday afternoon, they appeared exhausted.

Indio criminal defense attorney Mickie Reed, who is not involved in the case, said the judge's decision to allow the attorneys more time for closing arguments was unusual, “but not unheard of.”

“In my 11 years of trying murder cases I've only done it once,” she said, adding that she won the case.

Reed speculated that the judge will allow the attorneys to argue a new issue or law that was not previously brought up in closing arguments.

Former Deputy District Attorney Jennifer Beerman, who tried criminal cases in Indio for eight years, speculated that the jury may be debating over the concept of self-defense.

“No verdict after three days would give me cause for concern because that means at least one person on the jury still has not been convinced beyond a reasonable doubt,” Beerman said.

Shallenberger, a onetime president of the State Bar of California and Orange County Bar Association, kept a mobile home at the Portola Country Club in the 74000 block of Mercury Circle West, where his body was discovered on Sept. 30, 2006.

Deputy Public Defender David Prendergast told jurors in his closing argument Tuesday that choking Shallenberger was his client's “primal reaction” to the lawyer biting his penis during oral sex.

Prendergast said his client immediately fled and didn't check to see if Shallenberger was still alive because he wasn't thinking straight and thought that no one would believe what had happened.

But Deputy District Attorney Lisa DiMaria insisted there was not “one shred of evidence” that the defendant was bitten by the victim and said Anunciation admitted to a sheriff's investigator that he stole Shallenberger's laptop computer, cordless phones and credit cards, which he used to go on a “shopping spree.”

She called Anunciation a “cold and callous” killer and drug addict who deserves to be convicted of first-degree murder.