I know a lot of people have already heard of this but I stumbled across it while enjoying some highly amusing discovery telelvision and decided to pontificate about it. If it was before your time (like me)….hopefully you are learning something new.
In jurisprudence*, “Twinkie defense” is a derisive label for a criminal defendants’s claims that some unusual biological factor entered into the causes or motives of an alleged crime. According to this defense, the biological factor should mitigate the defendant’s responsibility, and s/he therefore should not be held criminally liable for actions which violated the law, or the criminal liability should be reduced 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 stimulants, such as coffee and nicotine, sugar (Twinkies), and/or vitamins. (sounds pretty damn good, eh? Propaganda devised by some clever lawyers to get a guy off a couple of murder charges…)**
In laymens terms, you can eat too many Twinkies, go beserk and start killing people…go on a killing bender cuZ you are so goddamn hopped up on the sugar. (not sure if it’s being mainlined with dirty needles or what but it’s lethal).
The illustrious Twinkie defense came to fruition in 1979 when some joker by the name of Dan White, decided to start killing people while on a sugar bender, assasinating San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk on November 27, 1978. Now to semi-intelligent folks like you and I; you realize this is a defense strategy concocted by some cockamamie lawyers using the diminished capacity defense ala The Twinkie Defense.
But the Discovery Channel depicts a very different re-enactment of the Twinkie defense. It shows this really bad actor sitting in a dark creepy room ripping open boxes of Twinkies and shoveling them in his mouth…one after another…and then opening his desk drawer…pulling out a shiny revolver and smiling real evil-like. He then goes to the Mayor’s office (he used to work for him so he’s got easy access…it’s best to kill the people who you have access to instead of adding another step to your murder plans by breaking into their offices and the like.) There is nothing like getting out of a murder charge and then getting nailed for breaking and entering…you’re welcome.
On a tiny sidebar, he was the ADVISOR to the Mayor…hmmmm, so instead of killing him, he could’ve saved himself all of this trial malarky and just told the guy to kill himself ala suicide, right? I mean, he is the ADVISOR…right? Advise then you bastard. No wonder the Mayor fired him, he wasn’t doing his job…(Mr. Mayor…”Please give me some advise Mr. White on what I should do with this Prop?”…Dan White; “Shut the fuck up you old coot, I need my Twinkie fix; I’m shaking for christ sake and have the cold sweats”)…
But no, he saunters into the Mayors office and shovels one last Twinkie into his mouth for good luck and bang bang…Mr. Mayor is dead. So Dan (the Twinkie fien)…goes home and eats more boxes of Twinkies in his dark room and also decides to eat some Chips Ahoy to mix things up a bit, the Twinkies can’t be held solely responsible …(the only thing that could’ve made this documentary sweeter was if he mainlined the damn Twinkies, melted them down on a spoon and let them harden into a rock…er wait…I don’t know what I’m talking about…I saw it on Gangland, yeah, that’s it)…I could’ve really respected the actor a little more if he would’ve taken the next step with his character…but I digress…
He then goes all the way back to the Mayor’s office (couldn’t he have multi-tasked and killed the Mayor and his Supervisor at the same time…saved on gas and time. It would’ve also given him more time to eat Twinkies in the dark room and plot more murders…some people do not plan ahead like me though.
He goes back, shoveling in Twinkies…oh yeah, starring at the gun in the taxi cab on the way over and eating Twinkies…the cab driver is oblivious to the maniac in the backseat smiling and holding his gun up high and eye-balling it with unabandoned reckless lust. And spilling Twinkie crumbs all over in the backseat of his cab. Then when he stops to drop him off; he doesn’t pay…however, in the cab driver’s defense…I wouldn’t argue with a gun-toting psychopath Twinkie addict either.
So he goes in and kills the other guy and leaves…or rather skips gayly down the street and crawls into bed to doze off and have sweet dreams…(literally of Twinkies and Chips Ahoy).
In conclusion, Dan White was convicted of voluntary manslaughter (is that like being a volunteer at the soup kitchen?) The state legislatures were not pleased with this verdict and a few years later got the diminished capacity law turned over so no one else could get off easy just because they were an unabashed Twinkie addicts. (I’m sorry, no more killing for you, join a damn twelve step program like everyone else) So sorry sugar fiens that get the hankering for a good killing spree every once in a while; you will have to get a better vice than that to blame your aggitation and mental unstability on.
In White’s defense, I sometimes feel like killing too after eating a Twinkie.
*The theory and philosophy of law in relation to Twinkies
**Don’t lie, if you were on the jury and some lawyers were boring you with that jibberish; you’d be like, yeah, let the dude off just shut up…I can’t take it anymore. Silence is golden mother fuckers.
