American satirist Paul Krassner coined the phrase “Twinkie defense” in reference to the infamous mishandling of Dan White’s trial for the 1978 murders of Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk. The December edition of DRIVEN contains an interview with Krassner, and an overview of the Twinkie Defense’s ramifications (p23 in the magazine). Exclusive to this website, here is one of Krassner’s additional theories for why Mr. White’s sentence was so unusually light:

“The prosecution [of Dan White] was really sloppy and poorly done. All the reporters at the trial agreed. One of the courtroom artists told me that [prosecutor] Tom Norman had told him that he had been in an elevator, and that someone in it said, ‘Tom Norman, you’re a motherfucker for prosecuting a cop.’ Then the guy’s drinking buddies join in, you know, half a dozen cops. That had a chilling effect on him. So, intimidation was part of it. The defense had a very shrewd defense of their client.”