The reporter who coined the infamous phrase in the Guardian looks
back at the White trial
BY PAUL KRASSNER
Wednesday November 19, 2008
This month marks the 30th anniversary of the assassination of San
Francisco Mayor George Moscone, who wanted to decriminalize
marijuana, and Supervisor Harvey Milk, the first openly gay
individual to be elected to public office in America. November also
marks the release of a film about the case titled Milk. Although a
former policeman, homophobic Dan White, had confessed to the murders,
he pleaded not guilty. I covered his trial for the Bay Guardian.
I'm embarrassed to admit that I said "Thank you" to the sheriff's
deputy who frisked me before I could enter the courtroom. However,
this was a superfluous ritual, since any journalist who wanted to
shoot White was prevented from doing so by wall-to-wall bulletproof glass.
Defense attorney Douglas Schmidt did not want any pro-gay sentiment
polluting the verdict, but he wasn't allowed to ask potential jurors
if they were gay, so instead he would ask if they had ever supported
controversial causes--"like homosexual rights, for instance.
" One juror came from a family of cops -- ordinarily, Schmidt would
have craved for him to be on this jury -- but the man mentioned, "I
live with a roommate and lover."
Schmidt phrased his next question: "Where does he or she work?"
The answer began, "He"--and the ball game was already over--"works at
Holiday Inn."
Through it all, White simply sat there as though he had been
mainlining epoxy glue. He just stared directly ahead, his eyes
focused on the crack between two adjacent boxes on the clerk's desk,
Olde English type identifiying them as "Deft" and "Pltff" for
defendant and plaintiff. He did not testify. Rather, he told his
story to several psychiatrists hired by the defense, and they
repeated those details in court.
At a press conference, Berkeley psychiatrist Lee Coleman denounced
the practice of psychiatric testimony, labeling it as "a disguised
form of hearsay."
* * *
J. I. Rodale, health food and publishing magnate, once claimed in an
editorial in his magazine, Prevention, that Lee Harvey Oswald had
been seen holding a Coca-Cola bottle only minutes after the
assassination of President John F. Kennedy. He concluded that Oswald
was not responsible for the killing because his brain was confused.
He was a "sugar drunkard." Rodale, who died of a heart attack during
a taping of The Dick Cavett Show -- in the midst of explaining how
good nutrition guarantees a long life -- called for a full-scale
investigation of crimes caused by sugar consumption.
In a surprise move, Dan White's defense team presented a similar
bio-chemical explanation of his behavior, blaming it on compulsive
gobbling down of sugar-filled junk-food snacks. This was a purely
accidental attack. Dale Metcalf, a former member of Ken Kesey's Merry
Pranksters who had become a lawyer, told me how he happened to be
playing chess with Steven Scheer, an associate of Dan White's attorney.
Metcalf had just read Orthomolecular Nutrition by Abram Hoffer. He
questioned Scherr about White's diet and learned that, while under
stress, White would consume candy bars and soft drinka. Metcalf
recommended the book to Scherr, suggesting the author as an expert
witness. In his book, Hoffer revealed a personal vendetta against
doughnuts, and White had once eaten five doughnuts in a row.
During the trial, one psychiatrist stated that, on the night before
the murders, while White was "getting depressed about the fact he
would not be reappointed [as supervisor], he just sat there in front
of the TV set, bingeing on Twinkies." In my notebook, I immediately
scribbled "the Twinkie defense," and wrote about it in my next report.
This was the first time that phrase had been used, and it was picked
up by the mainstream media.
In court, White just sat there in a state of complete control
bordering on catatonia, as he listened to an assembly line of
psychiatrists tell the jury how out of control he had been. One even
testified that, "If not for the aggravating fact of junk food, the
homicides might not have taken place."
* * *
The Twinkie was invented in 1930 by James Dewar, who described it as
"the best darn-tootin' idea I ever had." He got the idea of injecting
little cakes with sugary cream-like filling and came up with the name
while on a business trip, where he saw a billboard for Twinkle Toe
Shoes. "I shortened it to make it a little zippier for the kids," he said.
In the wake of the Twinkie defense, a representative of the ITT-owned
Continental Baking Company asserted that the notion that overdosing
on the cream-filled goodies could lead to murderous behavior was
"poppycock" and "crap" -- apparently two of the artificial
ingredients in Twinkies, along with sodium pyrophosphate and yellow
dye -- while another spokesperson for ITT couldn't believe "that a
rational jury paid serious attention to that issue."
Nevertheless, some jurors did. One remarked after the trial that "It
sounded like Dan White had hypoglycemia."
Doug Schmidt's closing argument became almost an apologetic parody of
his own defense. He told the jury that White did not have to be
"slobbering at the mouth" to be subject to diminished capacity. Nor,
he said, was this simply a case of "Eat a Twinkie and go crazy."
When Superior Court Judge Walter Calcagno presented the jury with his
instructions, he assured them access to the evidence, except that
they would not be allowed to have possession of White's .38 special
and his ammunition at the same time. After all, these deliberations
can get pretty heated. The judge was acting like a concerned
schoolteacher offering Twinkies to students but witholding the
cream-fillng to avoid any possible mess.
Each juror originally had to swear devotion to the criminal justice
system. It was that very system that had allowed for a shrewd defense
attorney's transmutation of a double political execution into the
mere White Sugar Murders. On the walls of the city, graffiti
cautioned, "Eat a Twinkie -- Kill a Cop!"
* * *
On the 50th anniversary of the Twinkie, inventor Dewar said, "Some
people say Twinkies are the quintessential junk food, but I believe
in the things. I fed them to my four kids, and they feed them to my
15 grandchildren. Twinkies never hurt them." A year later, the
world's largest Twinkie was unveiled in Boston. It was 10 feet long,
3 feet 6 inches high, 3 feet 8 inches wide, and weighed more than a ton.
In January 1984, Dan White was released from prison. He had served a
little more than five years. The estimated shelf life of a Twinkie
was seven years. That's two years longer than White spent behind
bars. When he was released, that Twinkie in his cupboard was still
edible. But perhaps, instead of eating it, he would have it bronzed.
In October 1985, he committed suicide by carbon monoxide poisoning in
his garage. He taped a note to the windshield of his car, reading,
"I'm sorry for all the pain and trouble I've caused."
I accepted his apology. I had gotten caught in the post-verdict riot
and was beaten by a couple of cops. My gait was affected, and
ultimately, as a result I now walk with a cane. At the airport, I
have to put the cane on the conveyor belt along with my overnight bag
and my shoes, but then I'm handed another cane to go through the
metal detector. You just never know what could be hidden inside a cane.
--
Paul Krassner is the author of Who's to Say What's Obscene: Politics,
Culture and Comedy in America Today, to be published by City Lights
Books in July 2009.
Click here to read Krassner's original coverage of the Dan White
Trial from the Guardian in 1979.
http://www.sfbg.com/PDFs/politics/Paul%20Krassner_Trial.pdf
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