Twinkie defense

About 3 pages (955 words)

Know this topic well? Help others and get FREE products!

In jurisprudence, "Twinkie defense" is a derisive^[1] label for a criminal defendant's claims that some unusual biological factor entered into the causes or motives of the alleged crime, and that due to this biological factor, either they should not be held criminally liable for actions which broke the law or the criminal liability should be mitigated to a lesser offense. While biological factors may certainly influence behavior, the label of "Twinkie defense" implies that the specific biological factor is one that most people would view as not being sufficient to account for criminal activity, such as the effects of allergies, minor stimulants such as coffee and nicotine, sugar, and/or vitamins.

1 Origins
2 References in popular culture
3 Notes
4 References
5 See also
6 External links

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, a noted psychiatrist, Martin Blinder, testified that White had been depressed at the time of the crime, pointing to several factors indicating White's depression: he had quit working; he shunned his wife; normally clean-cut, he grew slovenly; normally a fitness fanatic and health food advocate, he had been consuming Twinkies and Coca-Cola. As an incidental note, Blinder mentioned theories that elements of diet could worsen existing mood swings.^[2] Another psychiatrist, George Solomon, testified that White had "exploded" and was "sort of on automatic pilot" at the time of the killings.^[3] 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 argued for a ruling of diminished capacity. White was thus judged incapable of the premeditation required for a murder conviction, and was convicted of voluntary manslaughter instead. The unexpected verdict was unpopular, leading to the White Night Riots. In stories covering the trial, satirist Paul Krassner had played up the angle of the Twinkie,^[2] and he would later claim credit for coining the term "Twinkie defense".^[4] Just after the verdict, Herb Caen wrote in the San Francisco Chronicle about the police support for White (a former policeman himself) and their "dislike (understatement) of homosexuals" and mentioned "the Twinkie insanity defense" in passing.^[2] 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 symptomatic of and perhaps exacerbating an existing depression.^[5] As a result of the White case, diminished capacity was abolished in 1982 by Proposition 8 and the California legislature, and replaced by "diminished actuality", referring not to the capacity to have a specific intent but to whether a defendant actually had a required intent to commit the crime with which he was charged.^[6] By this time the "Twinkie defense" had become such a common referent that one participant waved a Twinkie in the air to make his point.^[2] Additionally, California's statutory definitions of premeditation and malice required for murder were eliminated with a return to common law definitions.

References in popular culture

In the play The Laramie Project, when Aaron McKinney says that he murdered Matthew Shepard because Shepard made a pass at him, Zackie Salmon likens Aaron McKinney's defense to the Twinkie defense. During oral Supreme Court arguments in United States v. Gonzalez-Lopez (No. 05-352) in April 2006, Justice Antonin Scalia referenced 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."^[7] Dead Kennedys' "cover" of the song "I Fought the Law" alters the song's lyrics to mock the Twinkie defense and the American legal system as a whole. The 2006 film Half Nelson features several scenes in which students recite civil rights lessons into the camera. In one of these, a student mentions the Dan White/Harvey Milk case and the subsequent "Twinkie defense". At the end of the scene, the student looks off-camera and asks "Is that for real?" A fifth-season episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm references the Twinkie defense.