Among members of America’s legal profession, a Twinkie Defense is a derogatory term referring to a courtroom defense strategy that sounds highly improbable to the point of absurdity. It originated with an infamous political murder trial.
San Francisco, November 27, 1978: Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk were shot and killed inside City Hall.
George Moscone was a popular mayor who had been in office just under three years.
Harvey Milk was the first openly gay man elected to the Board of Supervisors (similar to a city council but with broader powers).
The gunman was a retired police officer and former San Francisco Supervisor named Dan White.
One year earlier in 1977: It was a historic year for the Board. Not only was Milk the first gay man elected to the post, voters also elected the first black woman, the first single mother, and the first Chinese American. The Board President was Dianne Feinstein.
Dan White was not pleased with San Francisco’s politics. Especially regarding gay rights.
He repeatedly clashed with other Supervisors during meetings and was the only board member to vote against a city-wide gay rights initiative.
The former cop, fireman, and enlisted Vietnam veteran represented an area of the city dominated by working-class Democrats like him, including his fellow policemen and firefighters. White had to resign his job with the Fire Department per board rules, but he claimed he could not get by on his meager Supervisor’s pay. After a vote to raise salaries was defeated, White went to Mayor Moscone to tender his resignation.
But his constituents feared that Moscone would name someone undesirable to White’s vacated seat. So White met with the Mayor to rescind his resignation and remain on the Board. Moscone gave it consideration.
Harvey Milk, among others, argued that it was too late. White’s resignation had already been filed.
George Moscone decided to name a new man to take the seat. White found out.
He snuck into City Hall through a basement window. That way metal detectors wouldn’t find that he carried a revolver.
Dan White entered the Mayor’s office and shot him in the head. He then found Harvey Milk and killed him, too.
Dianne Feinstein found Milk’s body. She had seen White in the halls and knew he was the gunman.
There was no doubt that Dan White had committed the murders. His lawyers aimed to avoid him receiving the death penalty.
Hostess Twinkies were invented in Chicago in 1930. The Hostess Company owned a factory in San Francisco’s South of Market neighborhood (SOMA) that manufactured the snack cakes as well as Wonder Bread. It remained in operation until 2005. Longtime San Francisco residents might recall a prominent freeway billboard that for decades was located at the 101 freeway exit ramp; it read ‘The home of the Twinkie.’
In defending White, his lawyers claimed that he suffered clinical depression. His mental instability, they stated, declined due to increasingly poor eating habits.
Three defense witnesses reported that when White became a supervisor he grew depressed and gained weight. Though normally athletic and fit, he “ate candy a lot” as well as “doughnuts, junk food, sugary drinks.” Previously, he had eaten “healthy foods” like “milk and hamburgers,” never drank alcohol, and worked out.
After one meeting, White was so depressed that he ate “five doughnuts in a matter of seconds.”
A psychiatrist testified that when things went wrong for White he would “start gorging himself on junk foods - Twinkies, Coca Cola.”
The media derisively reported it as the Twinkie defense.
However, the lawyers’ primary argument was that White wasn’t in full command of his faculties due to depression.
In a peculiar twist, the jury agreed. They reduced White’s first degree murder charge to manslaughter with only seven years in prison.
That set off riots, especially amongst the gay community.
Harvey Milk became an iconic figure.
Dianne Feinstein became mayor and then a US Senator.
Shortly after his release from prison in 1985, Dan White committed suicide.
And the Twinkie Defense entered the legal lexicon.
Comments