FIRST IT WAS TWINKIES, NOW IT'S COFFEE

Back in 1979, Dan White blamed Twinkies for his killings of San Fransicko mayor George Moscone and supervisor Sean Penn – oops, I mean Harvey Milk. White claimed he was suffering from Diminished Capacity brought about by a high consumption of sugar.
　
Now lawyers for a Kentucky man, Woody Will Smith, used the defense that their client admitted to the strangulation murder of Amanda Hornsby-Smith in 2009 only because the cops plied him full of coffee while they questioned him. The lawyers claimed that his statements to police were made under high stress ‘fueled by large amounts of caffeine’ and a lack of sleep.
　
White’s ‘Twinkie Defense’ worked in that he was convicted of voluntary manslaughter instead of the capital murder charge for which he was tried. Unfortunately for Smith, the ‘Coffee Defense’ didn’t work for him. It took a jury in Newport less than two hours to convict him of murdering his wife.
　
(Actually, White’s lawyers never mentioned anything about Twinkies before, during or after his trial. The term ‘ Twinkie Defense’ was something cooked up by the media.)

I also posted this on PACOVILLA Corrections blog.
　
Kl2008a commented: Forget the caffiene defense. A smarter move would’ve been that the cops gave him too much coffee, then wouldn’t let him bleed his lizard until he gave up the grapes. That could fly as a forced admission, don’t you think?
　
And Bob Walsh added: If it was in California, it would probably work.