Sunday, February 8, 2009

Daily Question 78

Connect the two movies. More specifically, the inspirations for both of them. (P.S : me wants storeeee... )




Twinkie Defense

The movie Milk was inpired by the Moscone-Milk assassinations, the killings of San Francisco mayor George Moscone and openly gay Supervisor Harvey Milk, who were shot and killed in San Francisco City Hall by former Supervisor Dan White on November 27, 1978.
White was tried for first degree murder with special circumstance, a crime which potentially carried the death penalty in California. White's defense team claimed that he was depressed, evidenced by, among other things, his eating of unhealthy foods (inaccurate media reports that White's defense had presented junk food consumption as the cause of his mental state, rather than a symptom of it, would give rise to the legal term "Twinkie defense"). The defense argued that White's depression led to a state of mental diminished capacity, leaving him unable to have formed the premeditation necessary to commit first-degree murder.

The plot of the 1985 movie Bloody Wednesday was based on events of the San Ysidro McDonald's massacre, an incident of mass murder that occurred on July 18, 1984, in a McDonald's restaurant in the San Ysidro section of San Diego, California, United States. The shooting spree resulted in 22 deaths (including the perpetrator's) and the injuries of 19 others.
James Oliver Huberty, the perpetrator was killer by a SWAT sniper.
In 1986, Etna Huberty, James Huberty's widow, unsuccessfully sued McDonald's and Babcock and Wilcox, his longtime former employer, in an Ohio state court for $5 million, claiming that the massacre was triggered by the combined mixture of McDonald's food and work around poisonous metals. She alleged that monosodium glutamate in the food, combined with the high levels of lead and cadmium in Huberty's body, induced delusions and uncontrollable rage.

So, the connect is weird food-related criminal defenses, or the Twinkie Defense

Cracked by Arun, Shreesh, Kaballah and Anon

4 comments:

Shreesh said...

In both the incidents in , the defendants used the twinkie defense.The term was first coined during the trial of Dan White, the assasin of Harvery Milk. Later in the San Ysidro McDonald's massacre , the assasin Huberty sued McDonald's saying that he was not in proper mental state , blaming it on the monosodium glutamate and the high levels of lead and cadmium.They alleged that this hazardous environment lead to an uncontrallable rage , during which huberty committed the murders.There you are Vats!The story and which I hope is the answer.Treat at McD ? :P

Arun said...

Twinkie Defense?

a derisive label for a criminal defendant's claims that some unusual biological component factored into the causes or motives of an alleged crime.

In the moscone milk assasinations,the murderer White's defense team claimed that he was depressed, evidenced by, among other things, his eating of unhealthy foods. Also junta testified that he had begun consuming junk food and sugar-laden soft drinks like Coca-Cola. As an incidental note, he also mentioned theories that elements of diet could worsen existing mood swings.

Now, in the San Ysidro McDonald massacre (which was what Bloody Wednesday was based on), the widow claimed that he has MSG which made him mad. LOL max only considering that we have it everytime we go to wangs!

unsequitur said...

Lets go with ... Twinkie defense!
Quoting wiki : "In jurisprudence, "Twinkie defense" is a derisive label for a criminal defendant's claims that some unusual biological component factored into the causes or motives of an alleged crime"
(a) San Ysidro McDonalds murders perpetrator Huberty's wife claimed that the former was forced to commit the crimes due to high levels of monosodium glutamate and lead and other heavy metals.
(b) White, the guy who killed Milk, was given a lenient sentence apparently due the defense argument that he had diminished capacity due to effects of sugar-laden foods ( ie the twinkie )
ergo the rest.

Ram Kumar said...

I'm going to take a wild guess, totally out of the blue. Is there any chance of the answer being the Twinkie Defense?