[Bogey78O]

A crime is a crime.

However punishments should fit them. If he is starving turn him out with a slap on the wrist. If he insists, send him to where he has no risk of starvation with a warm bed and a nice work detail.

[Mrs. Don-o]

This homeless man had four or five legal options to get food:

1. earn it
2. get it from public welfare
3. get it from private or church charity
4. scavenge it (dumpster diving)
5. panhandling (street begging). Three, four, or all five of these options are lawful or treated as lawful --- the cops generally won't stop you.

As I remember reading from a firsthand colonial account, the hungry English settlers at the Plymouth colony took foods they found in baskets at some sort of Indian cache left there for the purpose of provisioning Indian hunting parties. They intended to pay it back when they could--- and they did.

So I agree in principle that a starving person can take food if he or his family are otherwise going hungry, AND if he has no other lawful options.

I do feel sorry for the poor man. I've worked with homeless people and they are so often addled and ill, or even quite mentally incapacitated. But it sounds like this was not the case with the bread&sausage man. He would've been better off if he'd been jailed... As you yourself mentioned. Three hots and a cot.