  A proposal for an electron-beam device that can act as an efficient
spin-polarization filter has been recently put forward [E. Karimi et al., Phys.
Rev. Lett. 108, 044801 (2012)]. It is based on combining the recently developed
diffraction technology for imposing orbital angular momentum to the beam with a
multipolar Wien filter inducing a sort of artificial non-relativistic
spin-orbit coupling. Here we reconsider the proposed device with a fully
quantum-mechanical simulation of the electron beam propagation, based on the
well established multi-slice method, supplemented with a Pauli term for taking
into account the spin degree of freedom. Using this upgraded numerical tool, we
study the feasibility and practical limitations of the proposed method for
spin-polarizing a free electron beam
