The "Twinkie Defense" Trial

 The infamous trial of a politician who claimed Twinkies displayed his distraught mental state before he killed two colleagues, one of which was an influential leader of the LGBTQ movement.

The Murder of Harvey Milk and George Moscone

    After resigning from his position on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, saying that his annual salary of $9,600 was not enough to support his family, within days, Dan White requested that his resignation be withdrawn, and he is reinstated. At the time of his request, San Francisco Mayor George Moscone agreed. But after further consideration and input from other board members, Moscone refused to reappoint him to his seat on the Board of Supervisors because Moscone was convinced that the seat would be better held by a person who came from a more diverse background than White. This act by Moscone enraged White as he blamed two prominent people for failing to be reappointed, George Moscone and Harvey Milk. Harvey Milk was the first openly gay man to be elected to public office in California as a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. Dan White blamed his failure on Harvey Milk because Milk lobbied heavily against his reappointment. Eventually, when Mayor Moscone decided to appoint Don Horanzy, a more liberal federal housing official, Dan White snapped. A half hour before the press conference to announce the appointment of Horanzy, Dan White entered the basement window of City Hall, avoided metal detectors, and went to Moscone's office. White shot Moscone in the shoulder and chest, then twice in the head. After reloading his police-issue revolver with hollow-point bullets, White started walking towards his former office. Along the way, he ran into Milk, asking him to step inside for a moment. At this time, future California Senator Dianne Feinstein heard gunshots and called the police. Minutes later, she found Milk face down on the floor, shot five times, including twice in the head. After leaving City Hall unchallenged, White eventually turned himself into Frank Falzon and another detective, former co-workers at his former precinct. He then recorded a statement that acknowledged shooting Moscone and Milk but denied premeditation. White was charged with first-degree murder under special circumstances, a crime that potentially carries the death penalty in California.

The Trial of Dan White

The trial of Dan White was presided by Judge Walter Calcagno. The jury for White's trial consisted of white middle-class San Franciscans who were mostly Catholic. Gay people and ethnic minorities were removed from the jury pool. "Good people, fine people, with fine backgrounds, simply don't kill people in cold blood." This was stated by White's defense attorney Doug Schmidt, who tried to prove that White's distraught mental state was a result of manipulation by the politicians in City Hall who had finally promised to give him his job back only to refuse him again. Schmidt connected White's depression by stating that it led to a state of diminished mental capacity, leaving him unable to have formed the premeditation necessary to commit first-degree murder. In addition, the defense showed that White's junk food binge the night before the murders displayed the mental deterioration that occurred since he was usually known to have been health-food conscious. Local newspapers quickly dubbed this argument the "Twinkie defense," which would go on to be an infamous argument. Newspapers claimed that White's defense had presented junk food consumption as the cause of his mental state rather than a symptom. Despite efforts by the prosecution to prove that White was in a state of premeditation before the murders, After 36 hours of deliberation, on May 21st, 1979, The jury accepted the arguments presented by the defense and convicted White of the lesser crime of voluntary manslaughter.