- You've probably heard about
some of these bizarre legal defenses.
The Twinkie Defense, what could that possibly mean?
Or if you've been on Reddit you might have engaged
in a thought experiment about what would happen
if one of two identical twins committed a murder.
They look exactly the same as their twin
and they share the same DNA.
Well, the thing is these legal defenses
have actually been made, and some were actually successful.
Well, sort of successful.
It depends on who you ask it. Partially...
Look, the law is complicated,
I don't know what to tell you, but...
(cheerful music)
So stop me if you've heard this one.
DMX, the rapper, plays one of his songs in court
and receives a reduced sentence.
Well, this actually happened.
In April of 2021, the world lost Earl Simmons,
better known as the stage name DMX.
A successful rapper, songwriter, and actor,
DMX undoubtedly had tremendous impact on music
and pop culture.
But as often the case for entertainers,
with fame and fortune follows addiction
and a litany of legal troubles.
And since 1986, DMX has been jailed 30 times
for a variety of offenses,
including robbery, assault, carjacking, drug possession,
pretending to be a federal agent, and tax evasion.
But the reason we are talking about DMX today
is for the unique defense offered by X's attorneys
at his sentencing hearing for his tax case.
And in what sounds like a contrived plot
to an '80s movie no one actually saw,
the day was saved in part thanks to the power of hip hop.
♪ It's true I got the bars like candy ♪
♪ But spitting verse like me ♪
♪ Will get you all up in the Grammy ♪
(record screeching)
- No, no, not like that. Definitely not like that.
But in July of 2017, federal prosecutors charged DMX
with 14 counts of tax fraud.
The government alleged the DMX owed 1.7 million
in unpaid taxes from income earned between 2002 and 2005
and had failed to file taxes from 2010 to 2015,
where DMX had made at least 2.3 million.
Pro tip, not legal advice: always file your taxes,
especially for a five-year period
where you're making millions of dollars.
But in November of 2017, DMX changed his plea to guilty,
and prior to sentencing, prosecutors were seeking
the maximum penalty for five years in prison.
So enter the father-daughter legal team
of Murray "Don't Worry Murray" Richman and Stacey Richman
who decided to try a novel music-based strategy
to convince U.S. district judge Jed Rakoff to be lenient.
At DMX's sentencing hearing, Murray Richman argued
that his client suffered a nightmarish childhood,
which had led to repeated encounters with the law
at an early age and set him on a bad path as an adult.
To illustrate his point, Murray requested that Judge Rakoff
watch his client's music video for DMX's hit song "Slippin'"
that lyrically describes his traumatic upbringing.
Growing up, DMX was abandoned by his father,
lived in extreme poverty, endured severe psychological
and physical abuse from his mother and her boyfriends
who knocked out DMX's teeth and left prominent scars
on his face as a young boy,
and then was introduced to drugs at 14 years old.
Murray argued that watching this video would show
how DMX was not a bad person,
just that his difficult upbringing meant
he was simply not prepared for the responsibility
of having lots of money.
The judge agreed to watch the video.
And after listening to the song, Judge Rakoff remarked
that in the eyes of the court, DMX was a good man,
noting, "In many ways, he's his own worst enemy."
Judge Rakoff then gave DMX a reduced sentence
for one year in prison and ordered him to pay
2.3 million in back taxes.
After sentencing DMX, his co-counsel, Stacey Richman,
explained the rationale for playing "Slippin'"
for the court.
- This was about the humanity of one person
reaching out to everyone else,
and it's not about getting a path, a pass.
It's about getting a path.
- And after learning about this case,
I'm gonna have to talk to my clients
about their bizarre lack of hit songs
to support their cases.
I mean, I can't do all the work for you.
But that brings us to the Twinkie Defense,
which is a very derisive term
for a thing that actually happened,
though it is incredibly misunderstood.
The most common legal strategy for defending murder suspects
is to deny all allegations and force the government to prove
every factual element of their case.
But when there is no dispute
that the defendant committed the crime,
defense counsel will often shift
to the defendant's mental state
to show why the defendant is not legally responsible
for the crime and at a minimum deserves a less severe charge
than first degree murder.
And such as the case with Dan White,
a former San Francisco city supervisor who assassinated
then-Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk
in a rampage at city hall, turned himself into the police,
and then confessed to the crime.
- Well, I'm definitely a law and order.
I campaign very hard on what I consider to be
the number one priority not only for my district,
but for San Francisco, and that is to make this a safe city.
- Now this has been the subject of several movies,
but here's the pertinent actual background.
On January 8th, 1978, Harvey Milk became
the first openly gay elected official
in the history of California.
A fervent advocate for gay rights,
Milk's first official act on the board was to introduce
a bill, which passed almost unanimously,
outlawing discrimination based on sexual orientation
in employment, housing, and public accommodations.
Milk's famously brash brand of liberal politics
frequently brought him into conflict
with that of conservative fellow supervisor Dan White,
a 32-year-old former police officer and firefighter.
For example, White was the lone dissenting vote
against Milk's non-discrimination ordinance.
Tensions between the two began to reach a boiling point
when Milk cast the deciding vote
in favor of opening a halfway home in White's district
for troubled adolescents.
White stated that he felt betrayed by Milk,
who had initially promised to oppose a halfway home,
and soon became disillusioned with the Board of Supervisors.
11 months into his tenure, White abruptly resigned
from the board on November 10th, 1978.
White claimed that he could not support his family
on a $9,600 salary
and announced that he was leaving politics for good.
Four days later, in response to pressure
from conservative-leaning police and business groups
who feared that the mayor would appoint a replacement
who would create a six-five liberal-conservative split,
White sought to withdraw his resignation.
Although Mayor Moscone initially agreed
to give White his job back,
the mayor changed course following an outpouring of outrage
from White's constituents who blasted him
as ineffective and inattentive.
On November 27th, 1978, the mayor was set to appoint
community activist Don Horanzy as supervisor.
Angered that his plan to return to the board was thwarted,
White then showed up at city hall,
slipped into a window to avoid metal detectors,
and confronted the mayor at his office.
When the mayor refused White's demand to be reappointed,
White proceeded to shoot and kill the mayor execution style.
He then walked down the hall and murdered Harvey Milk
as well, murdering his former colleague.
Both Moscone and Milk immediately died from their injuries.
Soon, then-acting-Mayor Dianne Feinstein
made the stunning announcement to the press.
- Both Mayor Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk
have been shot and killed.
- Oh, Jesus Christ! - Oh!
- The suspect is Supervisor Dan White.
- Later that day, White visited his former police precinct
to turn himself in and confess to the killings
in a recorded interview.
- [Dan] And then he started kind of smirking
'cause he knew, he knew I wasn't gonna be reappointed.
And he just kinda smirked at me as if to say, "Too bad."
And then I just got all flushed and hot and I shot him.
- The assassinations roiled the city of San Francisco,
resulting in an outpouring of spontaneous support
and mourning from the community.
And at trial, the defense counsel for White
argued that White's longstanding and untreated depression
gave him what's called diminished capacity,
such that he could not distinguish between right and wrong,
and thus lack the required intent to be found guilty
of premeditated first degree murder.
Remember that the difference between first, second,
and third degree murder usually depends
on the mental state of the accused.
Dr. Martin Blinder, one of the five expert witnesses
called by the defense, testified in the days
leading up to the killings
White, known for being focused on personal health
and fitness, cast aside his normal habits, grew stubble,
and in lieu of his normal healthy diet,
indulged in junk food.
Blinder testified that White's excessive consumption
of junk food, including Twinkies,
which were only mentioned in passing,
where evidence of his depressed state
that had exacerbated his already existing depression.
And the jury bought this diminished capacity defense
and White was convicted of voluntary manslaughter
rather than first degree murder.
He served five years in prison of a seven-year sentence.
Less than two years later, White returned to San Francisco
and committed suicide.
Outrage after the verdict led to a series of violent events
in San Francisco that would be known
as the White Night Riots.
And following intense negative publicity,
in 1982, California abolished the term diminished capacity
as a legal defense
and replaced it with something called diminished actuality.
Under this new standard, evidence of mental illness
is admissible to show a defendant lacked the specific intent
to commit the specific crime in which they were charged,
as opposed to the prior standard that could be used to show
that the defendant lacks all capacity
to have any specific intent to commit any crime.
And as you can imagine, many people were upset
about the outcome of the White trial,
which is where the Twinkie Defense name comes in.
In stories covering the trial,
San Francisco satirist Paul Krassner
played up the angle of the Twinkie
and claims that he may have even coined the term
the Twinkie Defense.
Derisive reporters covering the trial
seized on the testimony made in passing
that White had eaten Twinkies
in the days leading up to the murders,
adopted the Twinkie Defense framing,
which led to decades of misunderstanding.
And due to this misreporting in the press,
much of the public erroneously believed
that White's lawyers had argued that Twinkies
drove White to commit the murder.
In reality, White's lawyers argued that the junk food
was a symptom of his diminished capacity, not the cause.
But this misconception that White received a lesser charge
by claiming junk food made him commit murder,
which was repeated at the end of the 2008 biopic "Milk,"
persists to this day.
Nevertheless, the actual defense advanced
was still controversial for successfully reducing
White's charges from murder to manslaughter.
Since then, some commentators have argued
that the so-called Twinkie Defense was less pivotal
to White's defense then was the relatively conservative jury
who possibly supported and sympathized
with the former supervisor.
It was reported at the time that when the jury listened
to Dan White's recorded murder confession,
several of them actually wept.
And today the term the Twinkie Defense
has become a derisive catchall label
for improbable legal defenses,
like the ones that we're talking about in this video.
And during the oral argument in the Supreme Court case
of U.S. versus Gonzalez-Lopez,
the late Justice Antonin Scalia famously referenced
the Twinkie Defense do suggest that the right
to select one's own counsel is perhaps more important
than the right to have effective assistance of counsel.
The justice argued that, "I don't want a competent lawyer.
"I want a lawyer to get me off.
"I want a lawyer to invent the Twinkie Defense.
"I want to win."
And now we know why lawyers get accused of being unethical.
But now let's talk about one crazy legal hypothetical
that you'd think you'd only cover in law school,
but actually happened in real life.
What happens when an identical twin commits murder?
If, like me, you were raised on TV in the 1990s,
then you know that the sure-fire formula
to ensure wacky hijinks is to introduce twins
into any situation, have them switch places,
and then let the shenanigans unfold.
Remember those classic episodes where Tia and Tamara
switch places so they could take tests?
Or Mary Kate and Ashley switch places
to get their parents together?
And who can forget that time that Zack and Cody
were arrested for drug trafficking in Malaysia
but narrowly escaped the death penalty
when authorities couldn't tell them apart?
Oh, wait a minute. That's my bad.
That actually wasn't a special episode
of "The Sweet Life of Zack and Cody."
That was a real case where twin-based shenanigans
actually prevented brothers from being executed.
In 2003, Malaysian authorities arrested
27-year-old identical twins Sathis Raj and Sabarish Raj
for trafficking large amounts of opium and cannabis,
which in Malaysia carries a mandatory penalty
of death by hanging.
The police had caught one twin red handed
taking a car load of drugs to another house,
which only he had the key.
And then shortly thereafter, the other twin arrived
and was promptly arrested.
At trial, the judge acknowledged that the first brother
who was arrested with a key was the only one
with access to the drug house,
and therefore was the only one the state
could be able to prove was guilty of drug trafficking
beyond a reasonable doubt.
The problem?
Due to the twins' identical features,
it was impossible for the arresting officers
to determine which twin had been initially arrested
with a key to the drug house.
So further complicating the case,
the twins refused to admit to any crimes,
refused to testify against each other,
and the DNA evidence was inconclusive.
Unable to identify the twin originally arrested
in possession of the drugs, the judge acquitted both men.
In explaining her decision to acquit the brothers,
High Court Judge Zaharah Ibrahim noted,
"This is a very unique case as they are identical twins.
"Even the DNA evidence could not prove anything
"as the DNA could be either Sathis' or Sabarish's.
"I can't be calling the wrong twin to enter his defense.
"I can't be sending the wrong person to the gallows."
Or to explain this case using only "Simpsons" references--
- He can't kill anybody if he doesn't know
which one's the real Krusty. (grunting)
- Now I would like to tell you that this case is an outlier
and that there isn't some identical twin
exception to criming.
Unfortunately, convicting individuals
with identical twin siblings remains an ongoing dilemma
for law enforcement.
More often than you would think,
suspects have been acquitted or have charges dropped
when authorities can't prove which twin is guilty.
One problem in these cases is that eye witnesses
who struggle to identify the twin
that committed the actual crime.
For example, in 2011, 19-year-old Orlando Nembhard
was charged with shooting and killing a man
outside of an Arizona nightclub.
However, when evidence revealed
that his twin brother Brandon was at the scene,
prosecutors dropped the charges
when the witnesses were unable to identify
which brother pulled the trigger.
So as you can imagine, reasonable doubt can be built
right into these cases.
This isn't a legal issue per se. It's an evidentiary issue.
You have to prove your case beyond a reasonable doubt.
And if you can't identify which twin it was,
then you have a pretty uphill climb.
Now this video isn't over yet.
There is an extended version of this video over at Nebula
thanks to today's sponsor, Curiosity Stream,
who is running a 42%-off sale for the holidays.
Here is one criminal defense
that I definitely couldn't put on YouTube,
how Lorena Bobbitt got off.
(image whooshing)
I mean, why Lorena Bobbitt was found not guilty.
And I am thrilled to announce my first Nebula original
"Bad Law Words Good."
It is a long-form documentary where I explore
all of the most common legal and linguistic comments
that people throw around in everyday life incorrectly.
It's a hilarious romp through legal misunderstandings,
logical fallacies, and "Law & Order" parodies.
And it's only on Nebula, which you can get for free
with today's sponsor, Curiosity Stream.
Because Nebula is a place where we can experiment
with content and release things
that we couldn't put on YouTube.
And we're thrilled to be partnering with Curiosity Stream
because they are the go-to source for the best documentaries
and long-form educational content on the internet.
They even have an entire section devoted
to unsolved mysteries and crime.
So if you like my videos,
you'll love the stuff on Curiosity Stream.
And we worked out a deal where if you sign up
for Curiosity Stream with the link in the description,
you'll also get a Nebula subscription for free.
And to be clear, that Nebula subscription is not a trial.
It's free for as long as you're a Curiosity Stream member.
And right now Curiosity Stream is offering 42% off
their annual plans.
That's the best sale they've ever run,
and it's less than $12 for the entire year
for both Curiosity Stream and Nebula.
So if you click on the link in the description
or the link that's on screen right now,
you'll get both Curiosity Stream and Nebula for 42% off.
Or you can go to CuriosityStream.com/LegalEagle.
It's a great way to support this channel
and educational content directly,
and it's the only way to see my documentary
"Bad Law Words Good."
So just click on the link that's on screen right now.
Plus clicking on that link really helps out this channel.
And while you're at it, click on this playlist
with all of my other legal entertainment videos.
So click on this video or I'll see you in court.