Dan White and the Twinkie Defense

In 1978, former city supervisor Dan White assassinated San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and openly gay Supervisor Harvey Milk, then surrendered to the police. During his trial, his defense team argued that acute depression had impaired his judgment, citing his unusual consumption of sugary foods like Twinkies as further evidence, a tactic that became dubbed the "Twinkie Defense." Despite killing two men, White was convicted of voluntary manslaughter rather than murder. The verdict sparked public outrage and led to revisions in California's legal standards for diminished capacity.

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