I had a momentary impulse, as I was writing the last post, to use the expression "Twinkie defense." Mercifully, I am in the habit of looking up words and expressions when I'm not 100% certain of their exact meaning. It's not that I don't know what "Twinkie defense" means, but I wanted to make sure that the exact meaning of it fit in with what I intended to say. It didn't, but in the process I found out a lot of background info about how the expression came about and thought it was interesting enough to write a post about it.
The expression is commonly understood to refer to a diminished capacity that is brought on by eating too many Twinkies. Twinkies are high in sugar and all kinds of really gross stuff, and the theory goes that they can affect a person's mind to the level of being impaired in the capacity to formulate the required intent (for first degree murder you have to prove the person had the specific intent to kill someone, for example). The expression has taken on the connotation of being a ridiculous theory of defense, but one that works. I think it's a manifestation of "getting off on a technicality." In fact, the legislature freaked out about it soon after the trial that engendered it, which, if the expression had reflected what actually happened, would have been perfectly legitimate.
The above is background for any non-US readers who might wonder what the heck I'm talking about. Well, it turns out that the Twinkie defense, like getting off on a technicality, is a myth. In an attempt to dispel the myth, I give you this article from the San Francisco Chronicle. It's not that I don't think we should use the expression, but I do think it's important to know that what it refers to is a concept, rather than what actually went down. The article is very interesting, if you dig this sort of thing. Here's the beginning:
Myth of the 'Twinkie defense'
The verdict in the Dan White case wasn't based on his ingestion of junk food
Carol Pogash
Sunday, November 23, 2003
Ask anyone who's heard of Dan White -- and there are fewer and
fewer people who have -- how it was that the clean-cut, conservative San
Francisco supervisor received such a light sentence in the shooting deaths of
progressive San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and gay Supervisor Harvey Milk
25 years ago, and it brings an automatic response: the "Twinkie defense." The
impressionable jury, they'll say, swallowed the defense contention that Dan
White gobbled Twinkies, which blasted sugar through his arteries and drove him
into a murderous frenzy. About as simple as: "Eat a Twinkie, commit a murder."
As Thursday's 25th anniversary of the killings approaches, what survives
is a shared understanding of the gross miscarriage of justice: that an angry
young man many thought should have received the death penalty instead was
convicted of voluntary manslaughter and got a meager sentenceof less than
eight years (with time off for good behavior, he would end up serving only
five years, one month and nine days).
The "Twinkie defense" is so ingrained in our culture that it appears in
law dictionaries, in sociology textbooks, in college exams and in more than 2,
800 references on Google. Only a few of them call it what it is: a myth.
"I don't think Twinkies were ever mentioned in testimony," said chief
defense attorney Douglas Schmidt, who recalls "HoHos and Ding Dongs," but no
Twinkies. In fact, the cream-filled confections were mentioned, but only in
passing. Junk food was an insignificant part of the defense. The matter was
raised briefly in testimony by Marin psychiatrist Martin Blinder, one of five
defense therapists. Today, the entire episode is characterized by Schmidt as
"a throwaway witness . . . with a throwaway line.''
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