American politician and
civil
rights activist Born:
May 22, 1930,
In 1947 Milk
entered New York
State College for Teachers in In spite of
his lifestyle,
Milk's political and social values were conservative through the early
1960’s.
As the decade progressed, however, his views gradually began to change.
Milk's
new lover, Jack Galen McKinley, worked in theater, and through him Milk
became
involved as well. In 1968 when McKinley
was hired as a stage director for O’Horgan’s POLITICAL
OFFICE: When the Watergate scandal took place in
1973, Milk
was angered by the political cover-ups and decided to enter into the
political
arena hoping to produce change. His first attempt running for a spot on
the San
Francisco Board of Supervisors was met with defeat.
This said, he did however become popular in
his own largely gay district and became known as “the Mayor of Castro
Street”. On Milk’s third try, he was
finally elected
to the Board of Supervisors, becoming the first openly gay elected
official in
the city’s history. He was
instrumental in
starting programs that benefited minorities and the elderly. The city at his urging began a drive to hire
more gay and lesbian police officers. Milk
also gained national attention for his role in
defeating a state
senate proposal that would have prohibited gays and lesbians from
teaching in
public schools in A
LIFE CUT SHORT: On November 27, 1978, Milk and
Mayor Moscone were shot to death in City Hall by Dan White, a former
city
supervisor who had quit the board to protest the passage of the city's
gay
rights law. In his trial for the killings, White's attorneys employed
what came
to be known as the “Twinkie Defense”. http://www.notablebiographies.com/Ma-Mo/Milk-Harvey.html GEORGE
MOSCONE: Mayor of Born:
November 24, 1929, Died:
November 27, 1978, George
Moscone was born to
working class parents. His parents
divorced when he was eight at which time George lived with his mother. Moscone with the support of his mom and the
Catholic Church became an outstanding citizen who attended the
University of
the Pacific on a basketball scholarship. He
then went on to graduate from Hastings School of Law.
After law school he married his childhood
friend Gina Bodanza and had four children. They
were still married at the time of his death. POLITICS: Moscone at
the urging
of John Burton,
the brother of state assemblyman Phillip Burton, entered into the arena
of
politics. He went on to become a GAY
RIGHTS LEGISLATION: As a Senator,
Monscone was responsible for a California Gay Rights’ Bill. This bill prohibited discrimination, or
unequal treatment in the area of housing and employment based on sexual
orientation. The bill was signed in
April of 1977 in the mayor’s office. Moscone
was not always supported by the San Francisco
Board of
Supervisors as he continually sought their support on various matters.
DAN WHITE: Former policeman,
fireman, and member of San Francisco Board of
Supervisors Born:
September 2, 1946, Died:
October 21, 1985, On November
10, 1978, Dan
White a former police and firefighter resigned his position on the San
Francisco Board of Supervisors, claiming that his annual salary of
$9,600 was
not enough to support his family. November
27, 1978 a half hour before the press conference to announce Dan’s
replacement,
horrific events began to unfold. Dan
White entered City Hall through a basement window to avoid the metal
detectors
in the building and fatally shot Mayor Monscone. He
continued down the hall looking for his next
target and fatally shot Harvey Milk, the first openly gay man to be
elected to
an official position in the Few could have envied Douglas
Schmidt's, White’s Counsel’s task when he rose to make the opening
statement on
White's behalf; after all, he was representing an admitted double
assassin.
However, he soon went on the offensive. In an impressionable speech he
skillfully diverted the jury's attention away from the crime itself and
onto
the emotional traumas that White had undergone since relinquishing his
position
as city supervisor. "Good people, fine people, with fine backgrounds,
simply don't kill people in cold blood," said Schmidt, "it just doesn't
happen, and obviously some part of him has not been presented thus
far."
Schmidt claimed that White's crimes had been the product of manic
depression,
"a vile biochemical change" over which the defendant had no control.
As added insurance, just in case this line of reasoning failed to sway
the
jury, Schmidt rounded out his opening with some very pointed
comparisons
between Milk's overtly homosexual lifestyle and White's all-American
background. DEFENSE: “The
Twinkie Defense” as it became known, is synonymous with the trial of
Dan
White. White’s legal team took the
position that Dan was suffering from a long-standing and untreated
depression
that diminished his capacity to distinguish right from wrong. Expert testimony by psychiatrist Dr. Martin
Blinder noted White had changed his normally health conscious diet to a
diet
that consisted of junk food. Dr. Blinder
pointed out that this change in diet was evidence of White’s
depression, not a
cause of it. This state of depression
was used to establish grounds for a successful diminished capacity plea
convicting White of the lesser charge of voluntary manslaughter. “I don’t
think Twinkies were
ever mentioned in testimony,” said chief defense attorney Douglas
Schmidt, who
recalls “Ho Ho’s and Ding Dongs, but no Twinkies."
The main focus of the defense’s case
was diminished capacity- that White had
suffered from periodic bouts of depression, amounting to “a mental
illness.” That, along with “the
machinations of dirty politics at City Hall," White’s co-counsel
Stephen Scherr
said in a recent interview, “drove him ‘round the bend.” CONVICTION: On
May 21, 1979, the jury returned two verdicts of voluntary manslaughter.
Judge
Walter Calcagno gave White the maximum sentence, seven years, and eight
month’s
imprisonment. With good behavior he could
be a free man in five years. White was
released from prison January 6, 1984, after serving five years, one
month and
nine days. http://law.jrank.org/pages/3301/Daniel-James-White-Trial-1979-Double-Execution.html A
SUICIDE: Dan
White was found in a car in the garage of a house owned by his wife in CHANGE IN See: 1981
CAL. STAT.
ch. 404, effective January 1,
1982. See: 1982 CAL. STAT.
ch. 893,
effective January 1, 1983. THE FEDERAL RULE OF
DIMINISHED CAPACITY-SENTENCING: The United States
Sentencing Guidelines (USSG) sets minimum sentencing for
certain federal crimes, and also sets the guidelines by which judges
may stray
from these minimums. The U.S.S.G. states that a federal court may
depart
downward from the minimum sentence on the basis of diminished capacity
if the
offense was nonviolent. U.S.S.G. § 5K2.13. See also United
States v.
Cook, 53 F.3d 1029 (9th Cir. 1994). http://topics.law.cornell.edu/wex/diminished_capacity FULL
TEXT OF COUT DECISIONS: http://www.lexisnexis.com/clients/CACourts/ WHITE
NIGHT RIOT: The
public, particularly the
“MILK”-THE
MOVIE: The
Academy Awards presented an Oscar to Sean Penn on
February 23, 2009 for best Actor in his portrayal of Harvey Milk in the
movie,
“MILK”. ONLINE
ARTICLES: Off The Straight & Narrow Of Twinkies and Suicide Rates
“Misrepresentation of Facts in the Struggle for Queer Acceptance” by
Bootdog- Myth of the “Twinkie defense” –San
Francisco Chronicle, November 23, 2003 Murder At Moscone-Milk Assassinations-
Reported in a
Russian wiki OTHER
Robinson, P.
“Gays in the
Streets.” New Republic (June 9,
1979): 9-10. Flintwick,
James. “Aide:
White ‘A Wild Man”, The San Francisco
Examiner, (November 28, 1978) p.1. Ledbetter,
Les. “Thousands
Attend Funeral Mass for Slain San Francisco Mayor; Former Supervisor
Charged
Looking to the Mayor’s Job”, The New York
Times, (December 1, 1978) p. A20. “A Shilts,
Randy. The Mayor of Weiss, Mike. Double Play: The San Francisco City Hall
Killings, Addison Wesley Publishing
Company (1984). Smith,
Raymond,
Haider-Markel, Donald, eds., (2002). Gay
and Lesbian Americans and Political Participation. Alan Ellis…
[et al.]. The
Harvey Milk Institute Guide to Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and
Queer
Internet Research, Harrington Park Press (2002). Newman,
Leslea. A letter
to Harvey Milk” short stories. Charles
Patrick Ewing and
Joseph T. McCann. Minds on
trial: great cases in law and psychology, Krakow, Kari. The |