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. Dan White committed suicide seven years later.Īs 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. 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 having been symptomatic of an existing depression. The day after the verdict, columnist Herb Caen wrote in the San Francisco Chronicle about the police support for White, himself a former policeman, and their "dislike of homosexuals" and mentioned "the Twinkie insanity defense" in passing. In stories covering the trial, satirist Paul Krassner had played up the angle of the Twinkie, and he would later claim credit for coining the term "Twinkie defense". The actual legal defense that White's lawyers used was that his mental capacity had been diminished, and White's consumption of junk food was presented to the jury as one of many symptoms, not a cause, of White's depression. 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 misunderstanding was mentioned at the end of Milk, Gus Van Sant's 2008 biopic of Harvey Milk. However, one reporter's use of the term "Twinkie defense" became popular, leading to a persistent misunderstanding by the public. The defense did not claim that White was on a sugar rush and committed the murders as a result. Twinkies were only mentioned incidentally in the courtroom during the White trial, and junk food was a minor aspect of the defense presentation. Public protests over the verdict led to the White Night Riots. 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 convinced 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. Another psychiatrist, George Solomon, testified that White had "exploded" and was "sort of on automatic pilot" at the time of the killings. As an incidental note, Blinder mentioned theories that elements of diet could worsen existing mood swings. 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. At the trial, psychiatrist Martin Blinder testified that White had been depressed at the time of the crime, and pointed to several behavioral changes indicating White's depression: he had quit his job he shunned his wife and although normally clean-cut, he had become slovenly in appearance. The expression derives from the 1979 trial of Dan White, a former San Francisco police officer and firefighter who was serving as a city district supervisor up until assassinating Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk on November 27, 1978.
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