Main Page | See live article | Alphabetical index In jurisprudence, a biological defense is a so-called "innovative defense"; via which, a defendant argues that they should not be held criminally liable for actionss which broke the law, as they were suffering from the effects of allergies, stimulants (such as coffee and nicotine), sugar, and/or vitamins. In 1978, Dan White shot the mayor of San Francisco, Mascone; as well as a city councilman, Harvey Milk. After White's defense argued that he had consumed sugar, contained in Coca-Cola and Twinkies, White was given a mitigated sentence. This case led to the term "Twinkie defense", but contrary to popular belief, White's defense argued not that the consumption of twinkies caused mental instability, but rather that this consumption was unusual for him and reflected already existing mental instability. This article is from Wikipedia. All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.