Curb Your Enthusiasm Season 5 Episode 4

Larry says medication being used as an excuse for a personality change is like "the Twinkie defense," which came about during coverage of the trial of Dan White, who stood accused of the 1978 murders of San Francisco Mayor, George Moscone and City Supervisor, Harvey Milk. During the trial, White's defense team successfully argued diminished mental capacity on the grounds that the defendant was suffering depression at the time the crimes were committed. That their client had turned from a previously healthy diet to one of junkfood and Twinkies was offered as evidence of his depression. When White was convicted of the lesser charge of voluntary manslaughter, much reportage misrepresented the facts; and so it erroneously passed into popular belief that the defense team had argued that the consumption of Twinkies had caused the depression. The term now commonly indicates a certain level of dubiousness on the part of the user in reference to any legal argument which posits that circumstances outside the control of the defendant contributed to his or her actions.