Maintenance Phase - November 17, 2020


The Twinkie Defense

Topics
twinkie defense debate Dana White trial and diminished capacity defense
Moon Juice Anti-Fat Bias

Episode Stats


Length

49 minutes

Words per minute

183.16

Word count

8,986

Sentence count

494

Harmful content

Misogyny

11

sentences flagged

Toxicity

81

sentences flagged

Hate speech

41

sentences flagged


Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
Topics generated with Qwen2.5-3B-Instruct.
00:00:00.000 Hello. Welcome back to Maintenance Phase, the podcast where we talk about health, wellness,
00:00:16.980 and not Dr. Oz yet, but soon.
00:00:21.080 So soon. I'm so ready.
00:00:22.640 You know it's coming. This is what the people want.
00:00:25.560 Yeah, that's right.
00:00:26.540 I'm Michael Hobbs. I'm a reporter for The Huffington Post and the co-host of another
00:00:29.980 podcast, You're Wrong About. I'm Aubrey Gordon. You might know me as your fat friend. I'm a
00:00:34.060 writer and a columnist for Self Magazine. And I'm a fat lady about town. A fat lady about town and 0.64
00:00:39.580 self. Yeah, that's right. I'm a self fat town lady. That's right. That's how I prefer to be 1.00
00:00:44.240 referred to. Yes. Can I tell you what we're going to talk about today, Michael? Yes, please do.
00:00:48.080 We are going to talk about the Twinkie defense. Yes. What do you know about the Twinkie defense?
00:00:52.920 So as a gay man, the thing that you learn about Harvey Milk is he was the first gay person to hold elected office in the United States, I believe.
00:01:01.460 And he was murdered by his fellow like city council member in San Francisco, which is just a bananas twist.
00:01:12.280 And speaking of bananas, I guess, I'm sorry.
00:01:15.080 the guy that killed him named dan white i guess got like acquitted or got like a shorter sentence
00:01:21.060 or something because he said that the reason that he shot harvey milk was because he had like
00:01:27.860 eaten too many twinkies and like his blood sugar was low or something it was like a weird
00:01:32.340 temporary insanity defense that in some way involved twinkies and this has always been seen
00:01:37.620 as like a justifiable reason for people to be outraged that is all i know that is so much more
00:01:44.360 than almost anybody i've talked to in the researching of this episode yes it's a really
00:01:49.400 fascinating thing when i've asked gay people they're like oh the harvey milk thing and when 0.50
00:01:53.140 i ask straight people they're like i don't know what you're talking about oh interesting okay when 0.84
00:01:56.200 i ask straight people who do know what it is what i hear is that it's like you know basically an
00:02:01.520 excuse right for bad behavior the idea is criminals are craven and they will say whatever they need to
00:02:07.540 say to get off and it's like a stand-in to me anyway for like privileged white wealthy people
00:02:13.560 getting off on these just absurd defenses, right, that would never fly if it was a low-income
00:02:19.560 defendant. You're totally right. Harvey Milk is the first openly gay person elected to public
00:02:25.200 office. There may have been gay people before him. Right, of course. But it feels important to sort
00:02:29.340 of like highlight where we are and locate this in sort of what's happening in gay communities in
00:02:35.180 particular at this time. Because what year are we now? We are 1977 is when Harvey Milk is elected
00:02:41.700 to office. Okay. So in the 50s and 60s, gay people have started to come out, right? Stonewall is in
00:02:47.840 1969. It is now eight years later, gay people are much more out in the open, though still not 1.00
00:02:56.040 totally right. And there are these big high profile political conversations happening about 0.89
00:03:01.780 when and whether gay people are a political liability. So there's a huge debate happening
00:03:08.300 sort of throughout the 70s about the Equal Rights Amendment, right, which is the proposed
00:03:12.580 constitutional amendment that never has passed, defining that women are equal under the law.
00:03:17.900 And there is a very big, very public conversation amongst feminists about can we or can we not
00:03:25.660 include lesbians?
00:03:27.480 Oh, that doesn't remind me of any current debates going on right now. 1.00
00:03:33.160 100%.
00:03:33.520 I'm just going to sit here and read some magical realist children's literature.
00:03:38.300 It has nothing to do at all with this debate that was happening in the 70s.
00:03:41.460 The other thing that's happening at this time is that, you know, straight people start to get freaked out.
00:03:45.820 And they start to file these local and state level anti-gay ballot initiatives.
00:03:53.440 Anita Bryant, right?
00:03:54.460 Yes. 0.87
00:03:55.200 Tell me about Anita Bryant. 1.00
00:03:56.660 Anita Bryant, who is a conservative Christian, starts putting measures on the ballot in, I believe it was Florida, 0.81
00:04:01.960 basically saying that, like, gay people should have no part in public life at all. 1.00
00:04:05.480 and she loses but that also gives her like a huge platform and like she becomes a national
00:04:11.140 public figure over this and one of the main crusaders against gay rights right yes totally 0.99
00:04:16.780 she was prior to her weird like sort of main career as like just an anti-gay lady she was a
00:04:24.740 singer who was like sort of moderately popular in the 50s okay she had also been the spokesperson
00:04:30.200 person for florida orange juice okay so there is like a bunch of weird orange centered gay
00:04:37.260 activism that happens at the time oh yes i remember seeing this in the in my disco research
00:04:42.580 that people stopped serving uh screwdrivers in bars because they wouldn't order orange juice 0.55
00:04:47.960 and like gay people won't order orange juice like there's like a bunch of people who are like it's 0.86
00:04:51.900 sort of your political duty to boycott orange juice hell yeah there's also at this time sort
00:04:56.800 of some free-floating anxiety about food and nutrition oh the 70s are when carob comes onto 0.99
00:05:03.040 the scene oh fuck you we need to do an episode on carob oh my fucking god you have no idea how 0.99
00:05:08.960 much fucking carob i ate as a kid that stuff is terrible oh my god carob bran becomes a big deal 1.00
00:05:16.640 yogurt gets way more popular i just got like a wave of trauma when you brought up carob no i'm 0.99
00:05:23.380 so sorry as i've mentioned my mom was on diets my entire growing up and so like a lot of her
00:05:29.080 weird diet stuff bled into like the family like what the family ate and so we would have like
00:05:34.040 carob brownies and there was like weird carob like cereals and granoles and stuff and it's like 0.98
00:05:39.380 pretending to be like chocolate but it's bitter as hell it tastes like a fucking shoe it tastes
00:05:44.560 like dusty it somehow tastes dusty anyway so that's all also happening right the main context 0.95
00:05:52.880 though here is san francisco city hall right so what we're going to spend like a weirdly fair
00:05:58.940 amount of time talking about is the san francisco board of supervisors so san francisco is both a
00:06:03.620 city and county which means that they have a different sort of structure than like a city
00:06:07.860 council like other places would they have this board of supervisors oh i know but i know i'm
00:06:14.000 always so annoyed when like the cities or states have to do something different i don't know it's
00:06:18.760 Like, it's one of those things where there's always someone who's, like, going to pop out of a trash can and be like, actually, it's a commonwealth.
00:06:24.920 And you're like, I know.
00:06:26.400 I'm sure there's differences, but I've always been like that with San Francisco. 0.99
00:06:29.300 But that's me being a jerk and being bad. 0.97
00:06:31.920 I'm sorry. 0.98
00:06:32.460 I also just, like, fall asleep halfway through explaining it to someone.
00:06:36.080 I know.
00:06:36.380 This is a thing.
00:06:37.040 City council.
00:06:38.180 It's not a city council.
00:06:40.020 So in 1977, the San Francisco Chronicle is reporting and they're sort of celebrating.
00:06:46.060 this is the most diverse board of supervisors the city has ever seen. It's like a big deal.
00:06:50.940 People are like very excited about it, at least in the Chronicle. And there are sort of three
00:06:55.240 main figures that we'll talk about here. There are certainly more than that on the board of
00:06:58.620 supervisors. There are 11 people on the board of supervisors. We're going to talk about three of
00:07:01.680 them. The main folks we're going to talk about are Harvey Milk, as we've discussed, who's Jewish,
00:07:06.680 gay man, openly gay person. He's middle class. He's a Democrat. He's a Navy veteran. And he
00:07:13.560 It was sort of first politicized in his late 30s, which is about the time that he comes
00:07:18.420 out, particularly around the police abuse of LGBT people.
00:07:22.820 Next up, we've got Dan White.
00:07:24.640 Dan White is on the city council.
00:07:26.040 He's also white.
00:07:27.180 He's working class.
00:07:28.760 He's very religious, very Christian, and a Democrat as well.
00:07:32.700 He is straight and married and a father.
00:07:35.460 Dan White's campaign is predicated, at least in part, on opposing what he calls San Francisco's
00:07:41.160 social deviates.
00:07:42.540 Ooh, nice.
00:07:43.040 And he was a pretty devoted opponent of gay rights. And the other thing to know about like, Dan White and sort of his approach to all of this is that he is extremely like he is born of command control kinds of hierarchies. So he has been he's an army veteran as well. He is a former cop. And he is a firefighter at the time that he's elected to the board of supervisors.
00:08:08.520 So he's on, so he's like, he's like the man in like three different ways, basically.
00:08:14.300 Totally.
00:08:15.380 So he can't, he has to quit as a firefighter when he starts, because he's not allowed to
00:08:20.400 have another municipal job while he's on the board of supervisors.
00:08:23.920 So he quits his firefighting job, even though it pays more, and he buys this fast food
00:08:28.660 place called the Hot Potato.
00:08:31.460 And then the third person we're going to talk about is George Moscone, who's also married,
00:08:35.760 straight and white, and a father.
00:08:37.300 He is a career politician who's an attorney by trade, but who had already served in the
00:08:42.140 state legislature and was like, frankly, pretty radical.
00:08:46.600 He was vocally very supportive of, there was a 1977 direct action campaign by a bunch of
00:08:53.460 disabled activists where they took over a federal building for a month. 0.95
00:08:57.840 No way.
00:08:58.460 People kept being like, what are you going to do to take back this federal building?
00:09:00.920 And he's like, not much.
00:09:02.220 Seems like they're doing the right thing.
00:09:04.300 He's like, I'm going to send donuts.
00:09:06.020 I'm going to order pizzas.
00:09:06.940 Yeah. He also appoints a bunch of firsts. He appoints the first black man or the first black woman or the first white woman or the first gay person to a ton of stuff. And in an interesting little twist, his campaign for mayor actually has a bunch of volunteers from the People's Temple.
00:09:24.660 The Jonestown people?
00:09:26.180 Mm-hmm.
00:09:27.220 No way.
00:09:28.420 So Jim Jones is a big fan of George Moscone.
00:09:31.140 Whoa.
00:09:31.860 Which is a weird wrinkle to this and we'll get there.
00:09:34.480 Ooh, foreshadowing.
00:09:35.280 So initially, these three all work pretty well together. Harvey Milk goes to Dan White's kid's
00:09:41.360 baptism. Tension begins when the Catholic Church in San Francisco proposes opening a group home.
00:09:49.060 So a facility run by nuns. It's designed for youth in the criminal justice system, 0.94
00:09:53.640 and they want to put it in Dan White's district. Harvey Milk supports that proposal. Dan White does
00:09:58.940 not support that proposal and it gets weirdly contentious weirdly quickly so dan white also 0.85
00:10:05.780 around this time this is like 1977 78 opposes a statewide anti-gay law so he's on the right side
00:10:14.200 right as as far as i'm concerned as a gay person right like he's on the right side right but then 0.92
00:10:18.980 he goes back to the san francisco city council which is or excuse me god damn oh my god the 0.97
00:10:24.720 San Francisco Board of Supervisors. See, I'm making the vaffanculo fingers. Just be a city
00:10:29.740 council, guys. This is what you could avoid. So then the San Francisco City and County Board
00:10:36.580 of Supervisors are voting on their first non-discrimination ordinance. So an ordinance
00:10:40.880 saying you shouldn't be able to fire someone just because they're gay or just because you think
00:10:45.160 they're gay. Dan White is the only opposing vote. Okay, so he's on the right side of the debate at
00:10:51.320 the state level but on the wrong side at the city level it's very strange i couldn't find anything
00:10:56.960 that squared those two positions could it be that he doesn't actually vote on the one at the state
00:11:02.020 level so like he doesn't lose anything by opposing it like he could have just been doing it for
00:11:06.120 popularity reasons i don't know it could totally be a publicity opportunity right where you can
00:11:11.160 sort of say something stirring and that sounds egalitarian without actually having to have that
00:11:16.420 on your voting record. Right. So in addition to all of that, Dan White is like very, he calls
00:11:21.460 himself pro growth, which means he is in favor of a pretty aggressive approach to developing the
00:11:27.540 city, which also sounds familiar to now, right? Well, this is interesting because the boards of
00:11:34.380 supervisors and at the district level basically made it illegal to build any housing even while
00:11:39.500 the city was adding jobs. As much as I hate to say it, that's actually one where like I agree
00:11:44.380 with Dan White. I agree with the Twinkie murderer. I'm sorry. There will be a number of times in this 0.86
00:11:49.580 story where you're like, uh-oh, I kind of sympathize with Dan White. Yeah, but that's
00:11:53.860 good. History is supposed to make you feel weird. That's right. History is supposed to make you feel
00:11:57.960 weird. Yes. So there's this big sort of contentious debate around housing and what the city should do
00:12:02.960 about housing. Harvey Milk and George Moscone both feel like they should take this neighborhood
00:12:08.040 focused approach to development, that they should stunt the city's growth in these ways, right?
00:12:12.960 No, you're looking at them from the future like, no.
00:12:15.900 Yeah, totally.
00:12:16.680 Say, let's go.
00:12:18.180 The debate is contentious all the time on the city council around this particular issue.
00:12:23.080 But when Dan White gets involved, it gets really acrimonious and kind of personal.
00:12:27.060 And he repeatedly gets into multiple shouting matches in council chambers or a board of
00:12:32.840 supervisors.
00:12:33.100 I don't know what you call it if it's a board of supervisors, and I hate it.
00:12:37.480 So all of this happens, right?
00:12:39.120 There's all this tension.
00:12:39.980 And Dan White decides to resign from the Board of Supervisors.
00:12:44.860 Oh, over the housing issue or just like in general pissed off?
00:12:48.020 Just in general pissed off, right?
00:12:49.900 He's like, God, I couldn't keep my old job, which paid more.
00:12:53.020 I'm trying to work multiple jobs now.
00:12:55.240 It's just generally sounds like a stressful thing.
00:12:57.720 And he sounds generally very unhappy by all accounts, right?
00:13:02.040 So he resigns on November 10th, 1978.
00:13:05.640 Under the city's procedures, that means that Moscone gets to appoint his interim replacement.
00:13:09.980 That also gives Moscone the power to appoint someone who supports his vision on development,
00:13:15.620 right?
00:13:16.140 Yeah, this is a no-brainer.
00:13:16.900 You're going to appoint somebody who votes with you 100% of the time.
00:13:19.460 And Dan White is kind of the fly in the ointment, right?
00:13:22.340 There's way more alignment on the Board of Supervisors without Dan White than there is
00:13:28.300 with Dan White.
00:13:30.100 Folks hear that Dan White has resigned and a bunch of people get really freaked out.
00:13:35.920 The people who get freaked out that Dan White is leaving the Board of Supervisors are a bunch of business leaders and business associations, the Board of Realtors.
00:13:46.880 Right, because they want to build housing.
00:13:48.440 The police union is also very freaked out because they had a cop on the Board of Supervisors and because there are these very public clashes between gay people and police.
00:13:58.580 Man, talk about a powerful coalition, dude. Real estate agents and cops. Those are like the two
00:14:04.780 bread and butter city constituents, man.
00:14:08.300 It's also just a real hellscape.
00:14:09.960 Yeah.
00:14:12.500 They're totally bread and butter folks. And they're also, for folks who are familiar with
00:14:16.700 like city and local politics, you know that those are two groups of people who often do
00:14:21.540 whatever they feel they need to do to preserve their own wealth and status.
00:14:26.440 Right. So they must absolutely hate Dan White because he's given up. He's like flipped a vote on the board of supervisors.
00:14:32.640 Yes, yes, yes. So a couple days later, these lobbying groups, essentially, right, talk to Dan White and they're like, you need to unresign.
00:14:43.080 Oh, OK.
00:14:43.800 You need to rescind your resignation. So he does.
00:14:47.520 You can do that?
00:14:48.280 He gave it a shot. So he goes back to Moscone and says, I'd like to rescind my resignation.
00:14:55.000 Moscone says, give me a minute to think about it.
00:14:57.040 He has a carob brownie, as he thinks about it. And then it puts him in such a bad mood.
00:15:03.600 So Harvey Milk lobbies Moscone really hard to keep Dan White off of the board of supervisors.
00:15:09.800 And he actually kind of threatens Moscone. He says, if you reappoint Dan White,
00:15:14.680 You are finished in the gay community, and we won't even let you get elected dog catcher.
00:15:19.840 It gets so heated at one point during this sort of waiting period of about 10 days 1.00
00:15:24.620 that Dan White actually reaches out to an attorney and files for a court order to keep
00:15:29.760 Moscone from appointing a replacement.
00:15:32.200 Oh, wow.
00:15:32.600 And the court denies him that order because they're like, you quit your job, dude.
00:15:36.340 I mean, yeah.
00:15:37.320 It seems like everyone is kind of within their right to withhold this from Dan White.
00:15:41.240 Yes.
00:15:41.580 If you quit and then people who rely on you for their material benefit want you to un-quit.
00:15:48.460 It's not like you quit because your wife had cancer and then like she miraculously recovered
00:15:52.580 and you're like, oh, I want my job back.
00:15:54.260 Oh, okay.
00:15:54.920 You left and then people who would benefit were mad and then you came back.
00:15:59.040 Like it's not like a story of like values necessarily.
00:16:02.700 So the big thing I should say about the housing stuff that they're debating at this point
00:16:06.200 is Dan White supported this proposal that would essentially allow anyone who has owned
00:16:10.520 real estate for 10 years to sell it without paying tax oh that's bad oh it's super i mean like it is
00:16:18.040 like some lex luther shit yeah so that's part of the big debate that's happening on the board of 0.95
00:16:22.780 supervisors and you can imagine realtors are like jazzed yeah no kidding eight days after white 1.00
00:16:27.840 resigns jonestown happens oh fuck just throw that in there just throw like a mass suicide in there 0.99
00:16:34.320 sure it was a huge deal and because moscone had a ton of volunteers from the people's temple who 0.99
00:16:40.000 worked on his campaigns. So it wasn't just sort of this is a big event in the city. It was, you
00:16:47.060 know, something that I think personally reached a number of folks on the Board of Supervisors,
00:16:51.620 right? They were like in the fabric of the city's politics. Yeah. After sort of the dust settles a
00:16:56.220 couple days after Jonestown, Moscone decides to appoint someone who had been on Harvey Milk's
00:17:01.860 shortlist, who was significantly to the left of Dan White. So on November 27th, 1978,
00:17:10.180 Moscone is scheduled to announce the appointment of Dan White's replacement at City Hall. That day,
00:17:17.220 Dan White has a friend drive him to City Hall. He has his old service revolver with him,
00:17:22.620 and it is loaded with hollow point bullets. Oh, the exploding kind, the really ugly kind.
00:17:27.860 and he has another 10 rounds in his jacket oh wow i say all of this not to get into gory details of
00:17:35.480 murder but like this all speaks to me to premeditation right yeah he also enters through
00:17:41.360 a window in the basement so that he doesn't have to go through the metal detectors oh wow he enters
00:17:46.560 through the city's soil lab and one of the lab techs is like uh hi why are you climbing through
00:17:52.100 a window and he's like oh i'm on the board of supervisors and i forgot my keys i forgot my
00:17:57.560 keys at work so many times and i've never climbed through a basement window this is a little weird
00:18:03.300 councilman white also can we have some of the dirt that's on your jacket seems important to us
00:18:07.340 we need to study that thank you so dan white confronts moscone they argue moscone offers him
00:18:14.340 a drink and when he hands him the drink when he turns to hand him the drink white shoots him in
00:18:19.460 the chest. Once Moscone falls down, Dan White shoots him in the head twice. And examiners later 0.97
00:18:26.220 say he wouldn't necessarily have died if it were not for the head shots. Yeah, that's fucking 1.00
00:18:31.480 brutal. He then leaves Moscone's office and on his way to his next destination, he runs into 0.99
00:18:37.880 Dianne Feinstein, who is also on the board of supervisors at this point. Who is now the senator
00:18:43.000 from California, right? Correct. Okay. And she says, oh, I want to talk to you. And he says,
00:18:47.880 yeah yeah i'll totally talk to you i have something to do first oh my god that's dark it is so dark
00:18:53.440 it also speaks to premeditation right he clearly has like a to-do list dan white then goes to harvey
00:18:58.320 milk's office he has to speak to him harvey milk invites him in as soon as they're inside dan
00:19:03.020 white closes the door and blocks the exit and shoots him five times oh my god and as with
00:19:08.640 moscone the last shot is to his head and as with moscone the coroner concludes later that he
00:19:14.220 wouldn't have died if not for those last shots in both cases.
00:19:17.740 Yikes.
00:19:18.440 White then leaves City Hall.
00:19:20.220 He is not apprehended in the process.
00:19:22.340 So he just walks out of the building.
00:19:23.420 He just walks out of the building in broad daylight.
00:19:25.540 Gun back in the holster, walking out, just saunters out of the building.
00:19:29.320 Yeah.
00:19:29.620 And he ends up later sort of down the line turning himself in.
00:19:34.280 Oh.
00:19:34.480 Like he's not arrested at any point.
00:19:36.340 Interesting.
00:19:36.920 As he's leaving the building, Dianne Feinstein discovers Harvey Milk's body.
00:19:41.120 and there are actually like a bunch of descriptions of her trying to do city business and like prep 0.87
00:19:48.120 announcements while she is covered in his blood like it's really holy shit so she must have like
00:19:52.920 gone to his body and like checked if he was alive yes totally wow so that same night there's an 0.84
00:19:58.260 impromptu vigil at city hall it draws tens of thousands of people joan baez and holly near
00:20:05.220 perform okay san francisco gay men's chorus like it's a whole thing and within a couple of days
00:20:10.620 Dan White turns himself in to his former co-workers at his old precinct okay he sort of takes his time
00:20:17.800 and then he goes and finds his old partner from when he was a police officer and tells him that
00:20:24.660 he had also wanted to kill two more members of the board of supervisors too he wanted to kill 0.89
00:20:30.540 Willie Brown who was a black man on the board of supervisors and Carol Ruth Silver who was a white 0.90
00:20:36.040 woman who had been a freedom rider wow if he had completed his sort of list of murders he would 0.99
00:20:42.440 have killed an anti-racist white woman he would have killed a black man he would have killed a 0.99
00:20:47.880 gay jewish man and he would have killed a straight catholic yeah jesus christ that's like collecting 1.00
00:20:52.460 the whole set yeah totally it just seems like uh he is someone who like just in his heart of hearts 0.98
00:20:57.800 was like an incel before incels and mra before mras right like he walked so they could run it's
00:21:04.760 also depressing the whole kind of point of all of this is the idea that like being exposed to
00:21:10.960 different viewpoints and different kinds of people makes you like more sympathetic to them yeah but
00:21:15.880 he's like a weird example of like no you can you can still have violence when you actually know
00:21:20.980 people as people yeah there was that whole sort of era this is the beginning of the come out come
00:21:25.060 out wherever you are era of sort of gay rights activism right which is like everyone should come
00:21:30.300 out and actually at one of the memorials someone speaking there is an openly gay rabbi and who is 0.99
00:21:36.280 like it's actually everyone's responsibility now to come out yeah that's the scariest possible time 0.90
00:21:40.820 to come out as a gay person to like tell your colleagues that you're gay because like someone 0.99
00:21:44.300 just got fucking murdered by his colleague totally but does dan white have any history 0.99
00:21:47.960 of violence history of domestic abuse are there any other precursors because it's pretty wild to 0.99
00:21:53.840 go from zero to like trying to kill four people so quickly it really is and that actually gets
00:22:00.180 into the trial. Okay. Which is kind of perfect. Thank you for the perfect segue. I have not seen
00:22:06.380 any evidence of him having like a history of domestic violence. But also, this is around the
00:22:10.940 time that they're starting to define domestic violence in law. Right, right. And marital rape
00:22:15.660 isn't a thing yet. He also might have been doing those things and not been getting complaints
00:22:20.260 because why would you complain if there's no law against it? Right. And it wouldn't necessarily
00:22:23.940 leave a paper trail either. Totally. Yeah. So Dan White is taken into custody. He's charged with
00:22:29.920 first degree murder and the city is full of these rumors that like there's a rumor that cops are
00:22:35.960 letting him order takeout from jail okay and there's a more substantiated rumor that they are 0.99
00:22:42.620 actively fundraising for his defense fund which turns out to be true oh shit so it's like not out 0.95
00:22:48.360 of question that a former cop would get treated differently behind bars but like mostly i sort of 0.61
00:22:53.160 mention all of these rumors because they feel like an indication of how much attention and
00:22:58.160 pressure is surrounding this case right i would be so much more sympathetic to cops sort of like 0.94
00:23:04.320 bad apples explanation for police wrongdoing if they actually fucking threw the bad apples out 0.91
00:23:11.640 of the barrel when they found one like yeah this is a pretty clear case of like a cop murdering two 0.95
00:23:17.820 people in cold blood and they're fundraising for his legal defense i mean that is just like
00:23:22.440 it's so gross. Totally. The defense argument in this trial, the trial is like heavily covered.
00:23:28.540 The defense argument is called diminished capacity. Okay. The idea here and the idea
00:23:34.880 that they present to the jury is that he sunk into a very deep depression before he sort of
00:23:41.820 quote unquote snapped. And that at the time of the murder, he lacked the capacity for rational
00:23:46.460 thought. Right. So it couldn't have been premeditated. Therefore, he's not guilty.
00:23:49.700 But that's every murder.
00:23:52.140 I mean, it's like the rich people justice thing.
00:23:54.780 It's like, yeah, he's at a diminished capacity.
00:23:56.680 People don't kill other people unless they're at a diminished capacity.
00:24:00.000 Like, what's the murder in America that doesn't indicate a diminished capacity on some level? 1.00
00:24:05.340 What the fuck? 0.99
00:24:06.080 Right. 1.00
00:24:06.320 Everyone who murders someone has a diminished capacity for conflict resolution.
00:24:10.200 Yes.
00:24:10.900 So they bring in a couple of expert psych witnesses to testify around his depression.
00:24:17.140 Both of them say that he was in major depression.
00:24:19.540 he'd quit his job his marriage was on the rocks he was self-isolating they also mention and a
00:24:25.520 couple of character witnesses like folks that he worked with mentioned that he was normally like a 0.99
00:24:31.020 real big health food and fitness guy oh no carob is carib defense oh shit lower the carib boom 0.77
00:24:40.540 everybody yeah so they mentioned that he's actually been eating a lot of junk food
00:24:45.500 and that he's not been you know as physically active as he was and they're offering all of
00:24:51.020 this up as like these are all symptoms of depression but when you look at the media
00:24:56.560 coverage it's very clear that the media has no idea how to talk about a man particularly a white
00:25:04.300 man in a position of power having a mental illness so it wasn't he ate twinkies and twinkies are to
00:25:09.820 blame it's like he had diminished capacity in general there are many things that indicate his
00:25:14.800 diminished capacity one of which is his over consumption of junk food yes that is a symptom
00:25:20.380 it is not the cause right the word twinkies is spoken once nice in the trial and during that one
00:25:28.240 time there is this uh journalist and comedian he calls himself a satirical journalist oh god
00:25:34.740 oh jesus i don't like that at all well so his name's paul krasner okay um and he's one of the
00:25:41.800 merry pranksters oh and he goes to every day of this trial and he writes about it and he very
00:25:47.700 proudly claims credit for coming up with the phrase the twinkie defense nice some 30 years
00:25:52.900 later he writes a book called patty hurst and the twinkie murders okay that's like part of that book
00:25:58.820 is him like being like i came up with it you're welcome but then it's also it's him bragging about
00:26:04.360 like misinterpreting the actual argument no yes except to his point he is a satirical journalist
00:26:10.720 i feel like you can't just decide when like it counts and when it doesn't right satirical
00:26:19.940 journalist sounds like an oxymoron to me it is like a zen cone to me like what is the sound of
00:26:25.200 one hand clapping yeah and what the fuck is a satirical journalist i have no idea everything
00:26:30.500 i say is true unless i'm joking but i'm not gonna make it clear when i'm joking right okay and 0.94
00:26:35.740 there's also like an air of like hey listen man if you don't get it that's on you yeah
00:26:40.600 I guess you're square, man.
00:26:43.080 I just said Twinkie defense.
00:26:45.420 So this is like a pretty wild mischaracterization, right?
00:26:49.600 Here's a quote.
00:26:50.500 This is like kind of a long quote from Paul Krasner's essay on this,
00:26:55.400 The Twinkie Murder Trial of Harvey Milk's Killer.
00:26:58.500 J.I. Rodale, health food advocate and publishing magnate,
00:27:02.080 once claimed in an editorial in his magazine Prevention
00:27:04.620 that Lee Harvey Oswald had been seen holding a Coca-Cola bottle
00:27:08.560 only minutes before the assassination of President Kennedy.
00:27:12.660 Rodale concluded that Oswald was not responsible for the killing
00:27:16.180 because his brain was confused. 0.98
00:27:19.000 He was a, quote, sugar drunkard. 0.99
00:27:21.280 What?
00:27:21.860 Rodale, who died of a heart attack during a taping of the Dick Cavett show,
00:27:27.540 in the midst of explaining how good nutrition guarantees a long life,
00:27:31.440 called for a full-scale investigation of crimes caused by sugar consumption.
00:27:35.660 What?
00:27:36.020 In a surprise move, Dan White's defense team presented just such a biochemical explanation of his behavior.
00:27:43.920 Oh my god.
00:27:44.500 Blaming it on compulsive gobbling down of sugar-filled junk food snacks.
00:27:49.400 And so it came to pass that a pair of political assassinations was transmuted into voluntary manslaughter.
00:27:55.660 Is any of this true?
00:27:57.280 No. No!
00:27:59.360 So weirdly, this one paragraph from this one essay from this one merry prankster satirical journalist.
00:28:05.720 becomes our public understanding of how this case happens.
00:28:10.800 But did no one point that out at the time?
00:28:15.500 If this guy's self-identifying as a satirical journalist, it's not like it's hidden.
00:28:20.580 So like, are people saying this at the time?
00:28:22.260 Like, whoops, this is satire.
00:28:23.680 No, no.
00:28:25.180 It also doesn't appear to affect the reporting, right?
00:28:28.000 The reporting is like generally pretty straight up.
00:28:30.240 There are not reporters who are non-satirical journalists saying he did it because of Twinkies, right?
00:28:37.560 This is actually seems to be the flashpoint.
00:28:40.560 And again, Paul Krasner seems more than happy to claim credit for it.
00:28:45.260 The problem, okay, I have a theory.
00:28:47.300 Yes, tell me.
00:28:47.820 The problem with satire of this form is that for it to work, it has to be funny.
00:28:54.120 The article that he wrote isn't funny.
00:28:57.480 Right.
00:28:57.700 He shouldn't have been a merry prankster.
00:28:58.960 he should have been a mildly amused prankster right exactly it actually reminds me of these
00:29:04.660 online hoaxes that went around when Obama was president that every once in a while there'd be
00:29:07.700 a Facebook post it would get like 10 million shares they would just say Obama plans on
00:29:11.940 canceling all student debt and then if you click through the post it would be on some like weird
00:29:16.540 publication that you've never heard of and then down at the bottom in really small print it would
00:29:20.800 say like this is a satire but like that's not funny absolutely I mean it seems so disingenuous
00:29:26.940 to me i also frankly really bristle at a straight man covering a gay man's murder right with such 0.65
00:29:36.120 relish right that he's he really seems to be so into this role right it makes me feel gross 0.73
00:29:43.100 i don't have better words for it than that like it feels really gross to have this person
00:29:47.360 sort of very proudly claiming right this like jester's eye view right of like what is a pretty
00:29:54.420 serious thing and then just like publishing what amounts to like not funny misinformation.
00:30:00.060 Yeah.
00:30:00.400 What's interesting about this too, though, is that on some level, he's correct because
00:30:05.440 this is a really disingenuous defense, right?
00:30:08.820 I mean, this isn't a defense theory that I agree with.
00:30:11.700 It's not like he's defaming like an innocent person who was falsely accused of murder. 0.98
00:30:17.300 He's defaming someone who's like is trying to get a lighter sentence due to pretty bullshit 0.99
00:30:22.940 arguments. 0.99
00:30:23.880 Absolutely. And this also plays out in public opinion, right? So the verdict of the trial,
00:30:29.200 I'll just skip ahead. Verdict. Dan White was convicted of voluntary manslaughter.
00:30:34.400 Okay. Which is the non-premeditated one, right?
00:30:36.520 Yes, precisely. And he is sentenced to seven years in a state prison. He serves five of those.
00:30:43.640 Okay.
00:30:44.100 Many people at the time think that this verdict is a direct result of homophobia.
00:30:48.300 they note reporters note at the time that there are you know the jury is entirely white it's mostly
00:30:57.240 women and many of those women have kids that are about the age of dan white's kids so they're 0.95
00:31:04.280 seeing him first as a father potentially right so of course like queer people are extremely pissed 0.90
00:31:10.800 off yeah right oh yeah and it's more than just queer people right it's like the verdict is super 0.87
00:31:16.260 super widely rejected. And in sort of the post trial media, people are like, he got he got off
00:31:24.560 light, right by the standards of American justice. Yes, right. And this is also one of those cases
00:31:28.740 where we have a justice system that produces one outcome and calls it justice, which is like you
00:31:33.460 go to prison, right in the language that we have. This is not great. Yeah, it's it's I always feel
00:31:38.600 weird about being like indignant about short sentences, because I basically think that like,
00:31:43.320 everybody should get short sentences and that there should be options in the justice system
00:31:47.460 beyond just locking somebody up in like a horrible place where they're going to get like
00:31:51.620 raped and get diseases and not get medical care for like some period of time and be like what an 0.86
00:31:56.040 injustice when it's just like a fucking like seven layer dip of injustice after the convictions too 0.87
00:32:04.200 it seems worth noting this is about six months after the murders the conviction comes down 0.97
00:32:09.560 there are these things called the white knight riots have you heard about the white knight
00:32:13.100 riots no these were like a really big deal in the community and they are um not particularly known
00:32:18.980 by i would say gay people under like 40 i'm raising my hand right now yes so white had
00:32:24.740 originally been charged with first degree murder he was only convicted of voluntary manslaughter
00:32:28.380 and gay people straight up rioted dude not only was it that dan white had killed harvey milk the 0.51
00:32:36.400 first out gay person in elected office not only was it that he had had sort of overtly 0.99
00:32:42.760 homophobic politics like confusingly but overtly on top of all of that he was also a cop all right
00:32:49.720 and there were all these rumors right about him getting this preferential treatment from the
00:32:54.680 police at the same time as police brutality is like the issue for queer and trans people right
00:33:02.040 so him being a cop only sort of fuels the fire right and as many riots it started as a peaceful
00:33:10.160 protests in the Castro. And then it turns to property damage. And most of that property
00:33:14.560 damage happens at City Hall. Nice. Understandably. That same night, just a few hours after the
00:33:22.060 rioting is broken up, the police then go in to raid one of the most popular queer bars in the
00:33:28.580 Castro. Oh, wow. They show up in riot gear. They arrest two dozen people. And they beat people in 1.00
00:33:35.360 the bar with nightsticks no way so it's just like retaliation upon retaliation like it's it's 1.00
00:33:40.420 extremely clear what's happening 100 this becomes such a big thing that diane feinstein runs for 0.92
00:33:46.540 mayor and this is a plank in her platform that she promises that she's going to appoint a queer
00:33:51.900 friendly chief of police which again only makes the police union matter right yeah of course yeah
00:33:56.720 so we're about to get to part two of this story i'm going to wrap up the dan white part of this
00:34:01.720 And then there is a really fucking fascinating coda, Michael Hobbs. 0.75
00:34:07.560 I can't wait to tell you. 0.95
00:34:09.560 So Dan White serves five of his seven years in state prison.
00:34:13.400 He does end up moving back to San Francisco.
00:34:15.440 He lives with his wife and kids for a while, but his marriage falls apart soon after, as you can imagine.
00:34:19.800 I mean, yes.
00:34:21.060 So 18 months after being released from prison, he dies by suicide.
00:34:25.660 Oh, I did not know this.
00:34:27.140 So this is where it gets really fascinating, I think.
00:34:30.500 Okay.
00:34:30.940 I am very notorious for telling people the same thing or the same story multiple times.
00:34:36.360 I've told you one story in particular like three times.
00:34:39.300 Yes, every time we have talked.
00:34:41.360 Yes, I know exactly the story you mean.
00:34:44.380 So I was talking to my brother yesterday about this and I was like, oh my God, I learned this and this and this.
00:34:50.600 And like I told him something and he was like, dude, you genuinely told me that 10 minutes ago at the beginning of this call.
00:34:58.700 Can you not?
00:35:00.640 So the outrage following Dan White's trial was so great that it gets translated into
00:35:06.880 political momentum, not just at the local level, but statewide.
00:35:12.500 It leads to the architecture of what is one of the nation's first victims' bills of rights.
00:35:19.140 Oh, no.
00:35:20.240 We did an episode on these.
00:35:21.920 Tell me what you know about victims' bills of rights, like broad headlines. 1.00
00:35:24.860 The victims' rights movement was born out of feminists pointing out correctly that the justice system did not take victims of sexual assault seriously at all and treated them like shit. 0.95
00:35:37.720 But over time, this correct critique of the justice system was used as an excuse to over-criminalize and mass incarcerate a shitload of people that had nothing to do with sexual assault of women. 0.68
00:35:52.160 It never really solved the problems of, like, police incompetence or police indifference that were actually at the heart of this problem.
00:35:58.020 It just ended up being another vehicle to lengthen sentences and make the justice system more retributive.
00:36:06.300 100%.
00:36:06.740 So the thing that this sort of hooks into with victims' bills of rights, it's not about sexual assault.
00:36:13.700 And actually, I went back and found the text of – this was Proposition 8.
00:36:17.700 Weirdly fittingly, Proposition 8, 1982.
00:36:20.100 too i went back and looked at the text of the law there's not anything about sexual assault okay so
00:36:25.720 like dan white's trial happens right he gets he sort of starts serving his prison time this
00:36:30.600 political momentum builds they start building this victim's bill of rights while all of that is
00:36:35.160 happening and they're trying to get it on the ballot john hinckley's murder trial happens or
00:36:39.900 attempted murder trial happens oh that's the guy who tried to kill reagan right yes he said he shot
00:36:44.400 Reagan to impress Jodie Foster. Okay. By all accounts, Hinckley is like having a major break
00:36:51.160 with reality. Right. But people are so mad. He's not actually convicted. Oh, he's found not guilty
00:36:57.760 by reason of insanity. And he ends up getting mental health care. Oh, yeah. America does not
00:37:02.140 like that. No, no, no, no. So that only fans the flames of one particular part of this victim's
00:37:08.740 Bill of Rights, which is they essentially make it next to impossible to file a defense that's
00:37:17.200 not guilty by reason of insanity or diminished capacity, right?
00:37:22.180 That's a big chunk. And it's one of the leading factors in this Victims Bill of Rights, right?
00:37:27.440 It's discussed a ton in the voters pamphlet, right? This is what allowed Dan White to get
00:37:32.320 such a short sentence. This is what allowed John Hinckley to get off so easy, right? And it's also
00:37:37.560 the beginning of a ton of tough on crime rhetoric right there's actually a 1979 opinion piece
00:37:43.380 in a law review the glendale law review and the title is the diminished capacity defense in
00:37:49.340 california an idea whose time has gone oh man we love headlines with question marks on this show
00:37:56.160 we've done three episodes we have two is the justice system too easy on everyone question
00:38:04.660 Mark. So this law does a bunch of stuff. One, there's a sentence in the text of the law that 1.00
00:38:11.740 says the defense of diminished capacity is hereby abolished. Whoa. That in and of itself is like,
00:38:18.820 good God, get me out of here. It's also, I mean, this is such a hallmark of tough on crime policies
00:38:23.300 that it's basically trying to collapse the context. You're stripping away the context that
00:38:28.580 you would need for understanding why somebody committed a crime, right? Like you could argue
00:38:33.400 that an abused woman who murders her husband, you could say she has diminished capacity because of
00:38:40.460 the years of abuse, even if she wasn't under direct threat. But this is the kind of thing
00:38:45.660 that would remove your ability to do that. Yeah. That's only one of the many aspects to
00:38:51.300 this terrible law, right? So what you're talking about, the sort of like removal of discretion
00:38:55.720 also happens around judicial discretion, right?
00:39:00.340 Yes.
00:39:00.800 Prop 8 introduces a five-year mandatory sentence enhancement
00:39:05.080 for what are called habitual criminals. 1.00
00:39:07.160 Oh, shit. 1.00
00:39:07.940 So it establishes the idea that if you've committed multiple crimes, 1.00
00:39:12.060 you are now this separate class of habitual criminals
00:39:15.220 and you should have more prison time. 1.00
00:39:18.000 God, just say black people. 1.00
00:39:19.660 Like, it's very obvious, like, what they mean with these laws, right? 1.00
00:39:23.180 Totally.
00:39:23.600 Because the extent to which you're a quote-unquote habitual criminal is based on like how much surveillance by the cops you receive.
00:39:30.580 Yep. 0.61
00:39:30.980 A lot of white kids who are like habitual shoplifters, habitual drug users, those people don't look to the system like habitual lawbreakers because they weren't caught for those things because their neighborhoods aren't over-policed. 0.76
00:39:42.280 There's only one extremely predictable outcome of laws like this. 1.00
00:39:47.000 It's just a shit sandwich. 1.00
00:39:48.640 Yeah. 1.00
00:39:49.160 It's such imprecise thinking.
00:39:50.800 It is just sort of taking a hammer, using a hammer as a fly swatter.
00:39:54.840 What's that expression?
00:39:56.400 Whatever it is, I like yours better.
00:39:58.320 Okay, great.
00:39:58.600 That one's good.
00:39:59.440 You nailed it.
00:40:00.820 So it also establishes the right of victims of crime to address the accused in open court.
00:40:05.760 Yeah, that's another victim's rights sexual assault one.
00:40:09.160 You're welcome to the Writers of Law and Order from the state of California.
00:40:13.500 This is another one where like on some level I get it, right?
00:40:15.860 Remember the lady who was raped by the Stanford swimmer guy, and she gave this extremely moving account of how it affected her?
00:40:24.880 But on the other hand, it's basically an attempt to bring more emotion into courtrooms, which manipulates juries into longer sentences.
00:40:32.880 totally and it sort of continues to set up this dynamic of we will empathize with victims of
00:40:40.120 crimes at all costs and we will absolutely never empathize with perpetrators of crimes
00:40:46.640 dude can i tell you i at the beginning of quarantine i got my bike stolen oh no from
00:40:51.980 the basement in my building and the only time that i was contacted by the police about this
00:40:58.280 was when they asked me if I wanted to make a victim's impact statement like a written document
00:41:05.080 like how like losing my bike affected me I have insurance I got like I got a new bike it really
00:41:11.420 didn't affect me that much but like I'm now being invited to like manipulate the court about like
00:41:17.340 it affected me so much not having a bike for four days until I ordered a new one on the internet
00:41:22.560 like why would that be brought into this process it's just completely absurd and also it is like
00:41:28.260 Like, as you were talking about, like, they invited me to submit a written victim's impact statement.
00:41:32.880 I was like, I just imagined you in, like, a Ken Burns Civil War style, like, letter.
00:41:38.340 My dearest Martha, it has been months since I last had my bicycle.
00:41:43.940 Okay.
00:41:45.220 Dipping my pen in ink next to me.
00:41:47.480 Candles lit.
00:41:49.200 So, here's some text from the law itself, which I'm just like. 1.00
00:41:53.420 You love this shit. 0.99
00:41:55.080 I love it so much. 1.00
00:41:56.540 I love it and I hate it all at the same time.
00:41:59.000 This is like when I was like, wait a minute, there's a hook into the criminal justice system.
00:42:03.080 Let me take twice as long to research that as the actual Twinkies.
00:42:07.460 Great.
00:42:07.940 So this is where it gets twisty gross.
00:42:10.300 A person may be released on his or her own recognizance in the court's discretion subject to the same factors considered in setting bail.
00:42:16.920 However, no person charged with the commission of any serious felony shall be released on his or her own recognizance.
00:42:24.540 recognizance okay serious felonies include in the parlance of this law rape murder and attempted
00:42:31.860 murder arson assault with deadly weapon using explosive devices with the intent to injure
00:42:37.580 robbery kidnapping and there's something just called mayhem
00:42:41.260 you did mayhem in the like first degree mayhem is like an actual crime you did some mayhem and
00:42:50.920 now you don't get bail anymore. You mayhemmed all over me. This is bullshit.
00:42:55.940 Anyway, it passes. Totally passes. Skip ahead. It passes. Surprise. That's why we're talking 1.00
00:43:00.720 about it. So this was early in a wave of national efforts, right? Since then, 33 states have amended
00:43:06.660 their constitutions with some form of a victim's bill of rights. I know it's so bad. It's so bad.
00:43:13.040 It's a big part of the tough on crime sort of approach. Under the guise of helping people
00:43:18.500 when it's not actually designed to make anybody whole.
00:43:21.960 And it's, like, very obviously not designed for that.
00:43:24.240 There's one more thing that is, like, a weird little coda to the Twinkie defense stuff.
00:43:28.220 It comes up one more time in high-level federal law stuff.
00:43:31.900 There is a 2006 Supreme Court case about whether or not defendants should be able to choose their legal counsel, right?
00:43:40.520 And in what cases they ought to be able to, like, fire someone or hire someone new or whatever.
00:43:44.840 With regard to that case, Antonin Scalia, get ready, it's going to be a gem, in that
00:43:51.360 case says, quote, I don't want a competent lawyer.
00:43:53.840 I want a lawyer who's going to get me off.
00:43:55.520 I want the lawyer who will invent the Twinkie defense.
00:43:58.540 What?
00:43:59.340 I would not consider the Twinkie defense an invention of a competent lawyer, but I want
00:44:03.620 a lawyer who's going to win for me.
00:44:05.080 I don't even know what argument he's making.
00:44:06.500 What is the context?
00:44:08.240 The idea is you should be able to choose your counsel at any point because you want the 0.84
00:44:12.240 guy who's gonna make shit up that no lawyer actually argued ever but that's so disingenuous 0.89
00:44:18.120 because they use the twinkie defense to get a murderer a shorter sentence that's supposed to 0.96
00:44:23.600 be something Antonin Scalia is against right except there's this weird like I was like this
00:44:28.620 both doesn't make sense yeah about Scalia and also does because there's also something about
00:44:33.740 it that's just like free market you should be able to fire and fire whatever lawyer you want
00:44:37.220 at whatever time I mean like get the best competition you got to get the best service
00:44:41.200 blah blah blah right i mean i guess but it's like isn't he supposed to think that that's an 0.98
00:44:44.920 injustice what happened with dan white isn't that the whole premise behind these fucking 0.95
00:44:48.100 victims rights laws that like murderers are going free there's also no indication in this quote that 0.97
00:44:53.060 he has any fucking idea what the twinkie defense actually is yeah exactly yeah exactly so that's
00:44:57.480 the other thing he's not thinking about dan white he's certainly not thinking about harvey milg right 0.93
00:45:01.060 the uh i'm sure the footnote is not like based on a satirical journalist's account totally so there
00:45:07.460 are a few things about the twinkie defense that really stood out to me as i was like you know
00:45:10.520 pouring over the entirety of the story because it is a wild and rangy story right it has sort of
00:45:16.760 tentacles that reach out into a bunch of different things one is like of course it was never actually
00:45:21.640 about twinkies yes it was about homophobia and mental illness and mostly it was about homophobia
00:45:26.080 right and sort of like being an aggrieved white man yeah and the way that the justice system
00:45:30.960 will accept on their face specious arguments if the defendant is wearing a suit and has a good
00:45:37.540 lawyer so like on top of that it pretty directly contributes to prison population growth right yes
00:45:43.500 if you're making it this much easier to put people in prison there will be more people in prison
00:45:47.860 right these are entirely predictable consequences yeah i mean it's also become sort of this cultural
00:45:52.680 meme right like we were talking about earlier that plays into this idea that people who've been like
00:45:57.200 when you are accused of a crime in that moment of being accused you inherently become untrustworthy
00:46:03.520 you will start to shirk accountability and that you are already guilty right that sort of the
00:46:10.440 idea here is like you are mounting a defense it is disingenuous you can't be trusted because
00:46:15.120 you're a criminal and criminals can't be trusted right it also interestingly sort of perpetuates
00:46:19.140 some weird half-baked kind of ideas and attitudes that we have around food i was like is there
00:46:24.040 anything behind the sugar science right is it real aubrey did you find any evidence for this idea 0.73
00:46:30.800 It's so fucking conflicted. 0.69
00:46:33.040 Yeah. 0.99
00:46:33.380 I found a bunch of stuff that was like, sugar makes you do crazy shit, and a bunch of stuff 0.64
00:46:36.740 that was like, sugar doesn't make any difference. 0.93
00:46:38.220 Okay.
00:46:38.560 But there is this sort of bizarre thing, right, of like, there's a particular sub-thread of
00:46:43.800 that, of like, does sugar cause crime?
00:46:46.980 And the answer there seems to very clearly be no.
00:46:49.620 It has to be no, because the U.S. population eats far more sugar in the aggregate than
00:46:54.060 we did 30 years ago, and we have far less crime.
00:46:56.400 Right.
00:46:56.600 Right. So the interesting thing, the thing here that I find really fascinating is that we've taken this thing that never happened, the Twinkie defense, we've made it into a sort of cultural truism, and now we're using that truism to fuel our actual scientific research.
00:47:12.480 Right. Because the actual argument was never that the sugar made him commit the crime. The argument was that depression made him commit the crime.
00:47:19.600 I would also say on that note, one of the best sources for this, there were two really great sources for all of this research.
00:47:25.440 One was all of the original reporting from the San Francisco Chronicle was incredibly helpful.
00:47:30.780 And the other thing was there's a book by Lillian Faderman called Harvey Milk, His Lives and Death that is this really fascinating look at Harvey Milk as a deeply flawed person and at all of these people as deeply flawed people, right?
00:47:46.820 And that conversation around sort of people as fundamentally flawed is a really important one for the criminal justice system. And the effect of this was that the criminal justice system more and more pretended that that wasn't relevant at all. Was it just like, there's a different kind of person that commits crimes, and we have to put them away forever, rather than seeing everybody, including victims, as flawed human beings.
00:48:13.320 Yeah. The other thing that I would say about the Twinkie defense that kind of made me sad is that it feels like it kind of has overshadowed this really important and really heartbreaking story about the assassination, the in broad daylight assassination of the first out gay person to serve in public office.
00:48:33.540 But it does kind of stink as a queer person to read all of this and be like,
00:48:39.180 oh, the thing we took away from this is a defense that didn't actually happen
00:48:42.520 and a joke about how much we don't like criminals
00:48:45.140 and we're all using it to side with law enforcement
00:48:47.980 who were actively harming the people who got murdered.
00:48:51.420 Right.
00:48:52.160 So yeah, ballot initiatives are bad.
00:48:55.200 Don't vote for bills that are named after dead people.
00:48:59.520 and if anybody offers you carob, slap their hand away.