He had some, he told me he had a press conference scheduled and he was going to announce it at the press conference. Then ah. An ah. And I said, why. It was just like a roaring in my ears an, and then em.
Then I, I just shot him, that was it, it was over. And ah,. I started to say you know how hard I worked for it and what it meant to me and my family an then my reputation as, as a hard worker, good honest person and he just kind of smirked at me as if to say, too bad an then an then I just got all flushed an, an hot an I shot him.
I just said she was work. I just told her to meet me at the cathedral. She, she came to Northern Station with me. I just was going down there to talk to him, you know, an ah.
I was just trying to do a good job for the city. Thank you. White also knew that it was just a matter of time before a gay man had the opportunity to kill him and took it. He got away with murder, and he undid years of progress towards equal rights in San Francisco, leaving the city government in the conservative hands of Diane Feinstein, who was on record with her anti-gay beliefs and actions.
There were lots of gay men who would not have gone out of their way to kill White, but if the occasion offered itself would have happily pushed him in front of a bus or hit him with their car in a crosswalk, and would have willingly taken the consequences. I am a normally peaceful and non-violent man, but I was one of them; I would not have hesitated if the opportunity had come up.
His suicide was just choosing the date and method of his death, he knew it was inevitable and probably soon. In cross-examination by Schmidt, Falzon called White "a man among men" who, on the day of the killings, had become "a shattered individual. Doug Schmidt built the defense case around the testimony of a series of psychiatrists who told jurors that Dan White was so depressed, so sleep deprived, so bloated on junk food, that he lacked the capacity to premeditate and deliberate that was required to convict him of first-degree murder.
This defense, called a diminished capacity defense , was dubbed by the press "the Twinkie defense" after psychiatrist Dr.
Martin Blinder said that White might have been thrown off kilter by "gorging himself on There have been some studies, for example, where they have taken so-called career criminals and taken them off all their junk food and put them on milk and meat and potatoes, and their criminal records immediately evaporate. In addition to White's dietary issues, psychiatrists noted that White suffered from bouts of depression, including several lasting four or five days each in the months leading up to the shooting.
Blinder testified, "quite lethargic. He would retreat to his room. Wouldn't come to the door. Wouldn't answer the phone. Would call in sick. Wouldn't even sleep with his wife; would sleep on the couch outside. And during these periods he found that he could not cope with people. Other defense witnesses testified that White was under tremendous financial and family pressures in White's aide, Raymond Shine , testified that her boss was "frustrated a lot" that he wasn't spending enough time with his new child.
Apcar also testified that White felt financially pressured. Apcar and a string of White's friends testified that the White they knew in the past was a model individual--"calm and confident," in the words of one witness. Raymond Shine told a story of White saving him from a probable drowning while on a sailboat trip.
Shine said he "was really shocked and surprised" that his friend shot and killed Moscone and Milk. The implication jurors should draw from this testimony, Schmidt clearly hoped, was that White was a stand-up, decent guy who went careening off the tracks in the fall of Schmidt largely steered the defense witnesses clear of discussion related to White's frustration with the politics of the Board of Supervisors despite a reference to political divisions in his opening statement.
Most likely, Schmidt came to the conclusion that political frustrations were the source of a motive unlikely to be excused by the jury. The heart of Schmidt's defense consisted of testimony from psychiatrists suggesting that White's severe depression prevented him from weighing the consequences of his actions in City Hall when he confronted Moscone and Milk.
Jerry Jones, for example, testified, "I don't think that when a person is in the midst of a major depression that they are capable of mature and meaningful reflection.
After the defense rested its case, the prosecution offered rebuttal testimony from its own psychiatrist, Dr. Roland Levy. Levy testified that during his interview of White, the defendant showed little remorse. White admitted to having suffered through financial and family difficulties, but told Levy that he did not have a history of psychiatric problems.
Levy described White as "a rather rigid sort of individual," but not a person suffering from any mental disorders. Asked by Norman whether the defendant was depressed, Levy replied, "I had the feeling that One of the state's last rebuttal witnesses was Supervisor Carol Silver , whose testimony was sought to persuade jurors that these were politically motivated killings, not just shooting brought on by depression and junk food.
Silver testified about the friction that developed between White and Milk after Milk cast a vote in support of locating a facility for juvenile offenders in White's district. Silver testified, "Dan seemed to have counted on Harvey's vote" on the issue, and when Milk voted against him "Dan was very hostile to Harvey. In his brief, but emotional summation, Douglas Schmidt described White as "a man with a fine background" whose "pot had boiled over.
I pass laws. I run this city. San Francisco's Gay Freedom Day Parade is attended by a crowd estimated in size from ,00 to , At City Hall, Milk delivers a speech attacking the proposed Briggs Initiative which would make it unconstitutional in California to extend civil rights protections based on sexual orientation , which he says will "constitutionalize bigotry.
Dan White falls into a depressed state. Symptoms of his depression include insomnia, giving up his exercise schedule, and eating a less healthy diet. The latter symptom gave rise to the press's later description of White's diminished capacity defense as "the twinkie defense. There actually was no evidence presented that White actually ate a twinkie. That type of thing drove him nuts. All Sections. About Us. B2B Publishing. Business Visionaries.
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