# Twinkie defense **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [February 20, 2003, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/twinkie-defense/156328 "2003-02-20T14:49:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![marundel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/0ea827/32.png) [@marundel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/marundel)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2003, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/twinkie-defense/156328/1 "2003-02-20T14:49:19Z")
I was reading through the various reports about the Twinkie defense - the 1978 murder case. I was wondering what other cases since then have used the Twinkie defense successfully. I seem to recall a case in the 90’s where the defendant claimed that he was hyped up on sugar and not in control of his actions, but I can not find any information. Does anyone know of any cases in the last 10 to 15 years that have successfully used that defense? Thanks in advance for any information you can provide. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2003, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/twinkie-defense/156328/2 "2003-02-20T14:54:23Z")
The “twinkie defense” is something of an urban legend and has been debunked by [Snopes](http://www.snopes.com/legal/twinkie.htm) Briefly, Dan White’s defense was that he was depressed, and eating twinkies was a sign of that. They never claimed that the twinkies were a cause of his actions. The press latched onto the twinkie angle and blatantly misreported the facts. ---
**Author:** ![aahala](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a88e4f/32.png) [@aahala](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aahala)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2003, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/twinkie-defense/156328/3 "2003-02-20T15:07:59Z")
From my many hours of watching Court TV, I have concluded present day juries don’t give a rats about the defendent’s motivation or mental state. The only successful defense is innocence, unless you’re OJ of course. You can be stark raving mad, it doesn’t matter. ---
**Author:** ![Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/50afbb/32.png) [@Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duck_Duck_Goose)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2003, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/twinkie-defense/156328/4 "2003-02-20T15:24:22Z")
The only references I can find offhand to people who pleaded that their high blood sugar “made them do it” are of diabetics whose blood was hyperglycemic because they needed their insulin. [http://www.lawteacher.net/Criminal/Insanity%20Cases.htm](http://www.lawteacher.net/Criminal/Insanity%20Cases.htm) [http://www.state.il.us/court/Opinions/AppellateCourt/1997/5thDistrict/April/HTML/5950847.txt](http://www.state.il.us/court/Opinions/AppellateCourt/1997/5thDistrict/April/HTML/5950847.txt) In case anybody’s interested, [Straight Dope Staff Report, "Did a murderer escape punishment using the “Twinkie defense”?](http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mdimcapacity.html) ---
**Author:** ![yoyo3500](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/5daacb/32.png) [@yoyo3500](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yoyo3500)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2003, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/twinkie-defense/156328/5 "2003-02-20T15:28:57Z")
Once I heard that there was some kind of oberservation in the Vietnam War that American corpses took twice as long as Vietnamese corpses to decompose. Foods with lots of preservatives were cited as the likely reason for this phenomenon, so Twinkies could be involved here. Come to your own conclusions if you like.