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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Twinkie defense is a derisive label for an improbable legal defense. It is not an actual legal defense in jurisprudence, but a catchall term coined by reporters during their coverage of the trial of defendant Dan White for the murders of San Francisco City supervisor Harvey Milk and mayor George Moscone.

Contents 1 Origins 2 Diminished capacity 3 Supreme Court 4 See also 5 References 6 Further reading 7 External links

[edit] Origins

The expression derives from the 1979 trial of Dan White, a former San Francisco, California (U.S.) Supervisor who assassinated Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk, on November 27, 1978. At the trial, noted psychiatrist Martin Blinder testified that White had been depressed at the time of the crime, and pointed to several factors indicating White's depression: he had quit his job; he shunned his wife; and although normally clean-cut, he had become slovenly in appearance. Furthermore, White had previously been a fitness fanatic and health food advocate, but had begun consuming junk food and sugar-laden soft drinks like Coca-Cola. As an incidental note, Blinder mentioned theories that elements of diet could worsen existing mood swings.^[1] Another psychiatrist, George Solomon, testified that White had "exploded" and was "sort of on automatic pilot" at the time of the killings.^[2] The fact that White had killed Moscone and Milk was not challenged, but — in part because of the testimony from Blinder and other psychiatrists — the defense successfully persuaded the jury that White's capacity for rational thought had been diminished; the jurors found White incapable of the premeditation required for a murder conviction, and instead convicted him of voluntary manslaughter. Public protests over the verdict led to the White Night Riots.

[edit] Diminished capacity

Twinkies were never mentioned in the courtroom during the White trial, nor did the defense ever claim that White was on a sugar rush and committed the murders as a result. Yet, one reporter's use of the term "Twinkie defense" caught on and stuck, leading to a persistent misunderstanding by the public that exists to this day. In a bonus feature on the DVD version of The Times of Harvey Milk, a documentary on Milk's life and death, White's lawyers explain what they actually argued in court.

The actual legal defense that White's lawyers used was diminished capacity, and White's consumption of junk food was presented to the jury as one of many symptoms, and not a cause, of White's depression.

In stories covering the trial, satirist Paul Krassner had played up the angle of the Twinkie,^[1] and he would later claim credit for coining the term "Twinkie defense".^[3] The day after the verdict, columnist Herb Caen wrote in the San Francisco Chronicle about the police support for White (a former policeman himself) and their "dislike of homosexuals" and mentioned "the Twinkie insanity defense" in passing.^[1] News stories published after the trial, however, frequently reported the defense arguments inaccurately, claiming that the defense had presented junk food as the cause of White's depression and/or diminished capacity, instead of being symptomatic of (and perhaps exacerbating) an existing depression.^[4]

As a result of negative publicity from the White case and others, the term diminished capacity was abolished in 1982 by Proposition 8 and the California legislature and was replaced by the term diminished actuality, referring not to the capacity to have a specific intent, but to whether the defendant actually had the required intent to commit the crime with which he or she was charged.^[5] Additionally, California's statutory definitions of premeditation and malice required for murder were eliminated by the state's legislature, with the return to common law definitions. By this time, the "Twinkie defense" had become such a common term that one lawmaker had waved a Twinkie in the air while making his point during a debate.^[1]

[edit] Supreme Court

During oral Supreme Court arguments in United States v. Gonzalez-Lopez (No. 05-352) in April 2006, Justice Antonin Scalia referred to the Twinkie defense in discussion of a defendant's right to counsel of choice: "[If I am a defendant,] I don't want a competent lawyer. I want a lawyer who's going to get me off. I want a lawyer who will invent the Twinkie Defense [...] I would not consider the Twinkie Defense an invention of a competent lawyer [...] but I want a lawyer who's going to win for me."^[6]

[edit] See also

• Gay panic defense
• The San Ysidro McDonald's massacre, blamed by the gunman's widow in part on monosodium glutamate in McDonald's food

[edit] References

This article's citation style may be unclear. The references used may be clearer with a different or consistent style of citation, footnoting, or external linking.

[edit] Further reading

• California Penal Code Section 25-29 from Findlaw
• Trial and Error by Paul Tatara for CNN on June 6, 1997. Retrieved March 20, 2006.
• Mauro, Tony (2006-04-19). "High Court Debates Defendants' Right to Counsel of Choice". Legal Times (Law.com). http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1145362818596. Retrieved on 2007-02-02. 

[edit] External links

• Snopes: The Twinkie Defense
• "Myth of the 'Twinkie defense'" - San Francisco Chronicle, November 23, 2003