The Strangest Legal Defenses (That Worked!)

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[@LegalEagle]

👮‍♂ Is there a weird legal case I should cover? 🚀 LIMITED: Get CuriosityStream AND Nebula for 42% OFF! legaleagle.link/curiositystream

[@Pigeon_Flipper]

Chevron & currupt Judge illegally prosecut Lawyer Steven Donziger to prison with no jury. The judge is a leader of the federalist society funded by Chevron. Ever since he won a 9.5 billion judgment against Chevron for poisoning Ecuador (that they never paid). He was also in house arrest because he didn't give them his computer that would violate client privacy.

[@osmosisjones4912]

Do early on you yourself covered Trump's election court victories. New you support the big lie that he hasn't one a single court case that they were all thrown out do to lack evidence. Even Trump's own appointed judge. Did you even cover how Trump's own appointed judge Brett Kavanagh sat out the Texas suit. Or their 2 other election court case brought to the supreme court. From Ohio and Oklahoma. And first court cases were challenges to changes in election law. Accussers without evidence. Can you at admit Joe Biden because of Reduced election security

[@jakx2ob]

Could you do a video on jury nullification?

[@canuckcriticism2226]

Do Laws Broken In Project X.

[@swimmyswim417]

You should cover the case of Brigido Lara! He’s the art forger whose forgeries were so convincing, pretty much every historical expert consulted said they were legitimate. He was originally arrested on art theft charges until he proved he was the original creator. And to top it all off, he went on to get hired by one of the museums as an expert.

[@somethinglikethat2176]

Judge: you client owes the government millions. Lawyer: Your honour, X gunna give it to ya.

[@fangal12]

This post needs to get all the Likes😂

[@BrandanLee]

He's got such a good heart, he'll come to your door and give it to you.

[@green_growz1997]

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣nice nice

[@jasonwiggins6137]

You win.

[@juanfranciscovillarroelthu6876]

Judge: You make a really good point.

[@anothervagabond]

It's gotta be a pretty hyperspecific mental state that both makes you unable to tell right from wrong but also lets you remain aware enough to know that you should sneak in through a window to avoid metal detectors...

[@lik7953]

Yea I’m shocked. He clearly intentionally brought a gun with him, had the mental capacity to realise that if he went through the front door he would be caught, so he went through a window. It’s pretty clear he had intent to kill. I’m shocked that the defense worked

[@churchers]

Clearly the twinkies made him do it

[@seantaggart7382]

It kinda feels like anti social personality disorder but if im wrong oh well

[@Wannabanauthor]

@@lik7953 If I remember correctly, the defense claimed it was a common occurrence for people to climb in through the window to get into the building. Also, they played a recording for the jury of how bad Dan White thought his life was, and the jury cried for him. I think that info was from the Harvey Milk documentary.

[@randomjunk1977]

Not just that he climbed in through a window, he did it before the building opened so as not to arouse suspicion and then hid in a utility closet until business hours. He kept his gun concealed until he was alone with the mayor in his office. After shooting the mayor he reloaded his gun and then put it back in his pocket before leaving the office. Then he walked down a hall and went into Milk's office where he again waited until they were alone and then drew his reloaded weapon and shot him too. To let him off claiming he didn't know right from wrong given those facts is still utterly preposterous frankly, but not QUITE as preposterous as claiming Twinkies made him do it as is often erroneously reported.

[@oneandonlycara]

I love the case where here in Germany someone went onto a tram without paying and because in Germany it's not illegal per se to get onto a tram without paying but it's rather declared as something along the lines of fraud, that mad lad got onto the tram while wearing a shield saying "I don't have a ticket" and it actually worked in court

[@bccsivxx-xxivvii]

Wait, people actually still wear shields in Germany? Or maybe that term was lost in translation a bit?

[@oneandonlycara]

@@bccsivxx-xxivvii yeah I meant sign, plate, label, badge

[@crkTyphoon]

to add the correct context: This only "worked", because he declared that he had no ticket, thus giving opportunity to be declined entry or kicked out. You can go up to a bus or tram driver in Germany, explain them you have no cash for a ticket and politely ask if they are willing to let you ride anyway. Majority of cases, you will not be successful with that strategy but one out of a hundred times, someone might pity you and allow you take the ride. In such a case, while you are not owner of a ticket, thus technically not permitted to take the ride, the driver who has jurisdiction technically waved the requirement for you on a temporary basis. Him holding a shield, that announced that he had no ticket, technically fell into that category, because it meant that a) he was not commiting fraud by pretending to have a ticket to verify he paid the transportation fee while in fact he did not and b) giving reasonable opportunity to be declined entry or service or asked to leave.

[@eeeeee8762]

Send crudes

[@KindaShort]

Does Germany really not prosecute prison escapes? I always thought the explanation of " well of course people want to escape prison" to be hilarious but super reasonable?

[@lostyofficial]

You reminded me of a funny case that happened in Romania in 2018. A guy suffered a work accident in his first day at a new job; got his leg crushed by another person working on a forklift and he couldn't walk anymore. The employer hired detectives to prove that he was bluffing and was able to use his legs; they even got it on video. BUT... it turns out that the detectives followed his 3-year younger brother instead of the incapacitated person. The man won the equivalent of 125.000 dollars and a 125$ monthly payment until he could walk again... which (sadly, if you ask me) might mean for the rest of his life.

[@bccsivxx-xxivvii]

"sadly, if you ask me", lol, hopefully that's considered a sad thing by most anyone.

[@lurrielee2755]

$125k and $125 a month for the rest of my life for a crushed leg? That does NOT seem like a fair tradeoff in the slightest. It really seems like that compensation should be at least one if not two orders of magnitude higher to be anywhere near compensatory for the loss of an entire leg. $1.25 million up front and $1250 per month is on the EDGE of reasonable, but still quite low for what the damage sustained actually was. $12.5 million up front plus some thousands per month sounds far more reasonable, but perhaps costs of living are just vastly lower in Romania or something, or they just don’t value the use of their legs.

[@lostyofficial]

@@lurrielee2755 Agree. You're also right about the relatively low cost of living (or better say low income for most of the people) and about the value the state gives to its people. At least we have great natural landscapes... I guess?

[@ofallnames]

@@lurrielee2755 man you are gonna flip when you figure out what the US considers fair for a lost limb. Max is looking like 600k.

[@Olivia-zj9io]

I'm from Romania and i can verify that the legal system here is trash

[@lazypaladin]

Sidenote: I'm sorry but breaking into the Mayor's Office via window to avoid Metal Dectors? *Sounds an awful lot like pre-meditaion to me!*

[@MonkeyJedi99]

That was my thought as well. edit: Which would probably have gotten us both nullified from the jury selection.

[@kodaxmax]

Just because he carried a gun to an impromptu job application, intentionally bypassing security to smuggle the fire arm past metal detectors, doesn't mean he was going to shoot anybody. Mayby he was just concerned for his safety or protesting for his right to bear arms. I mean he did shoot two people in cold blood, who were in entirely different rooms, but that was just depression, as his twinky binge proves. /s

[@zeallust8542]

@N Fels Dude, shut up

[@zeallust8542]

@N Fels oh you mean stuff that has literally nothing to do with this case? Nice one bro.

[@DrZaius3141]

The same pre-meditation it takes to cross state lines with assault rifles after posting a video talking about killing people? It's all fine, right-wing terrorism is allowed in the USA.

[@robynkolozsvari]

"Twinkie defense" or no, the question of premeditation in the Dan White case is made really obvious by the fact he went out of his way and entered through a window to avoid metal detectors.

[@jaidenbrink]

The defense stated that at the time, it was fairly common practice for people, including officials to climb through the windows to avoid the metal detectors.

[@sixstringedthing]

And then hid in a closet until his target arrived.

[@redneckrambo9626]

I love how people keep acting like that means it was unquestionably premeditated - because he bypassed a detector. Hindsight is 20/20, yes we know he shot him. No, we absolutely, unequivocally, definitively do NOT know he was always planning to do so. He may very well have planned on scaring the sh*t out of the guy by waving his gun around/pointing it at him. It could have been planned as a threat and nothing more. You cannot state definitively that he was always planning to kill him if you can come up with a rational (regardless of how unlikely it is - understand that part because it's probably lost on you already) explanation.

[@24flyingcats84]

Plus, depression doesn't lead to people not knowing the difference between right and wrong, not on it's own. They said he hadn't been himself in the days leading up to the murder- I have lived with serious depression for years and I still know the difference between right and wrong. A psychotic episode would do it, but they didn't claim that was the case.

[@scottmatheson3346]

@@24flyingcats84 the jury didn't actually doubt his capacity to distinguish between right and wrong, but his capacity to premeditate (hence his manslaughter conviction). now, i think depression would have to be nigh catatonia to actually remove the ability to premeditate a homocide; we know depressed people are commonly capable of homocide (on themselves). but it was all jury nullification anyway.

[@NexusObscura9009]

The twin thing is really interesting. I’m a criminal division court clerk and we have one set of twins with a lot of cases and I swear every time one twin comes in they say “no that one was my brother.” 🤷‍♀️

[@HeterosexuaI]

Can I ask why fingerprint evidence hasn't been used in any of their cases? Assuming any of their cases involved possible fingerprint samples.

[@KidarWolf]

@@HeterosexuaI I would imagine it's probably that any fingerprint samples they do have are partials, and are inconclusive by sheer happenstance - regardless of relation, it's possible for people to have close matches to someone else. I had my fingerprints done for US immigration, and my prints came up with a warning there was a warrant for arrest for a double homicide, which was connected to a person that, when the immigration office looked at the information about that person, it was clear that person was not me. Interestingly, I cut my thumb open doing some crafting only a few weeks later, and the next time I was fingerprinted, my prints no longer matched due to the slipped prints caused by the injury.

[@goldenalt3166]

​@@HeterosexuaII also wonder if a complete genetic sequencing might find that the twins aren't perfectly identical.

[@alonealien1474]

The assassinations of Mayor Moscone and supervisor Harvey Milk continue to make me deeply sad. Such a great loss it was! And the fact that this man, Dan White, basically went scot-free after committing double-murder just boggles the mind!

[@chrisclifford7080]

the American Legal system in a nutshell. An Unorganized heap of conflicting jurisdictions and where the bad people somehow get A magical lawyer and some judge who forgot some things.

[@SM-nz9ff]

Exactly, its trash.

[@vignetter4802]

dan was the victim

[@iamnormal8648]

That's what *white priviledge* looks like. Murders committed by white people are routinely diminished in severity by raising the "mental health" and "difficult childhood" defences.

[@guitarsoupify]

@@vignetter4802 He was a homophobe and your defense of him makes it obvious that you are too.

[@swimmyswim417]

You should cover the case of Brigido Lara! He’s the art forger whose forgeries were so convincing, they tried to charge him with art theft until he proved he was the original creator. And then the museum hired him as an expert because their experts couldn’t tell the difference.

[@ICTman]

I like how "the museum" implies there is only one huge museum in existence

[@psykomancer4420]

Unrelated, but your name is fantastic.

[@NimhLabs]

@@ICTman I mean... if the British had their way... this would be how things work

[@swimmyswim417]

@@ICTman lmao fair I was just rattling off everything I could remember off the top of my head. I believe it was the Museo de Antropologia de Xalapa who hired him.

[@nenmaster5218]

For Chistmas, i'm gonna rewatch 'The War on Christmas' by Hbomberguy. And You?

[@thedebatehitman]

True story. A female airmen at my base had a positive drug urinalysis for cocaine. Upon being questioned, she did what you should all do under such circumstances, and she STFU and demanded access to her attorney. To make a long story short, her defense theory was that her boyfriend-with whom she had broken up after popping hot on her drug test-was a cocaine abuser. The defense argued that she had performed oral sex on him the day prior to her urinalysis, and that she must’ve ingested cocaine that he had transferred to his penis when dressing or urinating. The argument might seem like poppycock, but it was apparently enough to give rise to reasonable doubt in the mind of those who decided her case at summary court martial.

[@one_smol_duck]

oh dear god that pun

[@christinebenson518]

Apparently Richard Prior used to put cocaine on his penis. It did infact transfer to his female partners. One of his ex girlfriends dumped him when she figured it out after a doctor's visit.

[@icp7201]

It's one of these cases that really illustrates the real job of a defense lawyer: It is not to prove that your client is innocent, but to show that the evidence isn't proof enough that he isn't. Raising reasonable doubt is more than enough for it

[@appalachiabrauchfrau]

I buy it. When I was using I got heroin all over my shit. My profs could probably test positive after grading one of my tests lol.

[@rhamlet5290]

I'd like to point out that it is ridiculous that someone would be court-martialed for a urine test...

[@aatragon]

I was on a jury in the 1990's wherein one guy stole a car at gunpoint. He was found later, red-handed, joyriding around in the car and arrested. At the trial, the victim pointed him out and declared, "That's the guy!" The defendant, however, testified that he did not do it, but that the crime was done by his i͎d͎e͎n͎t͎i͎c͎a͎l͎ ͎t͎w͎i͎n͎ ͎b͎r͎o͎t͎h͎e͎r͎. He was merely driving a car he believed to be owned by his brother. Then they trotted out a guy (later revealed to be brought out from jail for the occasion) who looked very like the defendant, particularly from a distance. The victim, however, identified some burn marks on the defendant's gun hand, which he had ample reason to fixate upon during the holdup. After deliberation, we found the defendant guilty. Only after the trial did they reveal to us that this was not their first try at the scam, but it was their first conviction.

[@lordsceptile6181]

You should talk about the boobs to big defense. It was a Japanese case where a man tired to say a women broke through his window the entered his house. The women was defended by the fact that she couldn’t physically fit through the window because “her boobs where too big.”

[@WilliamWizer]

that's a joke. right? she was declared non-guilty because she had big boobs? I wonder, how many men where at the jury?

[@angela.8454]

@@WilliamWizeri mean if she genuinely could not fit through the window , how would she get un

[@WilliamWizer]

@@angela.8454 breast binding could reduce her breast size, one or two cup sizes, and protect them. also, you only need to fit an arm to open the window and enter. reverse the trick when you leave.

[@noneayourbusiness5149]

"The law is complicated, I don't know what to tell you." - the entire basis behind the need for the LegalEagle channel on KZbin summed up in a single sentence!

[@MonkeyJedi99]

The 'complicated-ness' of an occupation can be roughly evaluated by the amount of reference material regularly needed in the process of that job. Lawyers have rooms of law books, engineers have a similar wall of reference manuals, doctors have thick tomes like anatomy books and the PDR (Physicians' Desk Reference) Even when these people have access to digital versions of these books, the sheer amount of material can still be measured.

[@Brandanus]

the clear downside of this channel is casual conversations could trigger the urge to start with "ackchtshually..."

[@dennishickey7194]

He never answered my question about the "necessity" of altering felony transcripts. That practice seems pretty straightforward, so I wonder what the value of his postings are to us.

[@angelmendez-rivera351]

@@dennishickey7194 The video was never intended to answer the question. Your accusation is bizarre.

[@dennishickey7194]

@@angelmendez-rivera351 Of course this video and all such he posts are not intended to address the issue I raised. I point out his, as all other lawyers', refusal to answer the most basic practices of the courts they presume to explain (and reconcile us to). I can appreciate that that you find my comments inappropriate or "bizarre" as you said. I do hope you take a minute to consider the practice of forging the transcripts in felony cases and what it means legally and morally.

[@corey2232]

I worked a county jail where the police dropped off a guy for warrants. We booked him, took the mug shots, do the screenings, run fingerprints, run him through the FBI database, showered him out, housed him, etc. A couple days later, we call him down to be released. RIGHT BEFORE his paperwork is finished being processed & we send him out the door, we receive a phone call. It's from a person claiming to be this guy we're about to release! The guy says he saw online that he was apparently arrested, & was pissed off as clearly he wasn't. He then suggests the police arrested his twin brother thinking it was him, and that his brother went along with it because he (the brother) has waaaaay worse warrants! He tells us his brother's name & info, and sure enough, the dude was wanted for multiple felonies, like aggravated robbery & assaults (as opposed to unpaid traffic tickets that became warrants LOL)! Man did that F*** him over HARD after we confirmed it all. On top of those serious charges, he then had new charges added, along with being labeled an escape risk 🤣 Had he kept on good terms with his twin brother, he'd have walked out a free man after a day or two in jail. Instead, his pissed off twin brother threw him under the bus & ensured he was going to be serving at least 10 years behind bars. Oops!

[@Shade01982]

Is one brother's testimony enough in this? What would have happened if the other brother had started pointing back? Would that have made it a his word vs his word situation?

[@iCarus_A]

@@Shade01982 I'm guessing that the brother's words checked out after they ran the guy's profile through the database? Maybe the first time they "ran the fingerprints" they were registering it as a new profile rather than searching for criminal records

[@Compucles]

@@iCarus_A Yeah, even identical twins have different fingerprints.

[@Starry_Night_Sky7455]

This deserves an entire video analysis.

[@RusticRonnie]

How do you know the man the called wasn’t the twin that actually had the warrants. And you were right the 1st time.

[@thedullohanvids]

I'm a server and I had a table of people from a local law firm the other day. They were talking about some cases while I served them and one of the guys mentioned the Twinkie defense and it seemed like no one else at the table knew what he was talking about. I said I know what that is and explained it to them. I think they were pretty impressed with me. Thanks to Legal Eagle. 😁

[@Aydrenn]

I call BS, how an attorney could possibly graduate law school and get jobs at a law firm without having even the slightest idea as to what "the Twinkie defense" is, even though it is one of the most infamous criminal defenses in recent memory, is outright ludicrous.

[@jaimel88]

​@@Aydrenn I don't think it's specifically taught or even recognized at all outside the US, which OP never said they were from.

[@lanagievski1540]

I’m an identical twin and though I’ve thankfully never had to deal with the courts, I have had issues with my twin committing crimes and dealing with the social repercussions of that since we looked the same and I would be mistaken for them in public.

[@dansanger5340]

The Dan White verdict is really a case of jury nullification. They would have latched onto any excuse in order to go easy on their guy.

[@Najolve]

I would have thrown the book at him for throwing away the opportunity to be a running mate with Milk. "Vote White Milk! These guys are so bland you'll forget to get mad about politics!"

[@jogadorjnc]

Idk, the dude killed himself, odds are he really was struggling with mental health when he killed them.

[@robertbeste]

@@jogadorjnc Epstein "committed suicide" too. Doesn't mean he wasn't a horrible person who belonged in jail.

[@equidistanthoneyjoy7600]

@@jogadorjnc Of course he was, mentally well people don't commit murder. But if that's the argument, murder would never be a crime; only a condition. The important detail is that his issues don't excuse his actions, he chose to commit murder and he clearly planned it ahead of time. He knew full well what he was doing.

[@vi6126]

@@jogadorjnc Dan White killed himself after his release from prison though. He feared retaliation for the murders he committed and was having marital troubles. And he could have been dealing with remorse or trauma from his years in prison. I'm not saying this to commiserate him, I just want to point out that his mental state might have changed for a lot of reasons in the 7 years that passed between when he committed the murders and his suicide. And even if it didn't, someone being very depressed or suicidal in itself doesn't mean that they're not legally responsible for their actions.

[@TheSpeedPlays]

One of my favorite strange legal defenses is when Ken Penders, former writer for Archie Comic's Sonic the Hedgehog was sued by Archie for breach of contract. It's a long story, but the important fact here is that Ken claimed that, because Archie lost his original contract and could only produce a copy of a contractual renewal, that the copy was a fake because Archie Comic's main business was graphic design, and "they would know how to fake something like that." I can sort of see how a judge could be convinced with that argument, but I'm more stunned how the legal team had the audacity to even try that argument.

[@GeraldMMonroe]

So for a civil trial wouldn't you need to establish by preponderance of evidence that your theory was true. Like it wouldn't be enough to just say "it could be fake" but need to find evidence that indicates it is more likely than not to be fake. Such as earlier drafts, ridiculous contract terms, errors in key places like say a letterhead not matching, files on a computer or tools used to actually make a fake, etc. I mean if you accuse someone of being able to fake stuff why didn't they fake the original.

[@cericat]

Penders has been a PITA for decades claiming he owns characters he doesn't. It's probably ongoing right this minute on his twitter still since he popped up again in my mentions last week.

[@shadowdramon01]

I remember something about him suing Archie for the rights of a bunch of characters and the vast majority were basically Blue Knuckles, Fat Knuckles, Old Knuckles, Knuckles with beard, Female Knuckles, Female Knuckles with braids etc. etc.

[@cericat]

@@shadowdramon01 it was still going in 2015 at least but they sued him because he was trying to copyright troll. Archie finally gave up unfortunately and settled to get rid of his nuisance, but he also went after EA and Sega over Dark Brotherhood, Same judge tossed it out twice and the appellate court did again.

[@Mr12Relic]

10:40 A similar thing happened when 1 half of a conjoined twin got into a barfight and could not face jail time for the assault because it would mean wrongful imprisonment of his innocent brother.

[@MISTAKEWASMADE4live]

It's not a legitimate defense though, it's just the law being completely incompetent, conjoined or not they need to be punished even if it means the "innocent" brother serving time

[@Mr12Relic]

@@MISTAKEWASMADE4live To knowingly restrict an innocent directly violates the 5th and 14th amendments.

[@andeggbreaks]

​@@MISTAKEWASMADE4live No

[@margotrosendorn6371]

As someone who's actually schizophrenic, these "diminished capacity" smokescreens make me sick. If I ever end up in court, I'm going to be tried as a competent adult.

[@immaterialspectator4209]

It's funny how the same people who will tell you mental illness is a moral failing and you should just get over it, are happy to argue that the rich white guy who is using it as a defence for his abuse, bigotry or violence deserves sympathy, and "Really, can you blame him?"

[@alexcisneros2980]

No. Truth is they will prosecute you because America loves putting people behind bars instead of reforming and helping. But you'd end up at a psychiatric prision committed instead of a prison.

[@daymenpollet4202]

U do releases impaired judgement is an actual thing that can happen to poeple with severe psychotic illness?

[@immaterialspectator4209]

@@daymenpollet4202 Yes. What we are saying is that those rules are almost never applied to people with genuine mental illness. 98% of cases end in a plea deal, because unless you have the resources to fight all the way the legal system is rigged to give law enforcement overwhelming control over every step of the process. Getting a reduced sentence, because mental illness more often than not means you could either afford an excellent legal team or the persecution actively decided they don't want to punish you to the full extent of the law. Both those things tend to mean you're a rich white guy. Genuinely mentally ill people tend to be impoverished and one of law enforcement's favorite victims, because any complaints of abuse will be ignored as 'delusional'. In practice, if a schizophrenic got arrested off the street it was because they made people uncomfortable, somebody called the cops, the cops came, violently confronted the victim and beat them up, charged them with resisting arrest and destroying public property for bleeding on their uniform, stuck them in a jail where they were sexually assaulted, forced them to sign a plea deal for whatever crime popped up in their heads or just kicked them out back on the street with a "You should be grateful we're so patient and softhearted with your kind."

[@homemovelha4173]

​@@daymenpollet4202 i think he's specifically talking about the cases where that obviously isn't the case and the lawyers are just using it as an excuse

[@makinapacal]

The Diminished Capacity defence in the Dan White case was rather dubious. It was obvious by White's behavior that he had planned the whole thing ahead of time. Certainly entering through that window with a gun indicates prior planning and the fact that White after murdering the Mayor White reloaded his gun and then killed Milk doesn't indicate much "diminished capacity". After the murders Dan White got support from the local Police Union and of course his whole routine of poor me was an attempt to make himself the real "true" "victim". The bottom line is that depressed people can plan and carry out murders, although in this case I wonder just how depressed he really was.

[@ZeldagigafanMatthew]

What should've sealed his fate and earned him life without parole is the fact that he climbed through a window to bypass metal detectors. If this really were a case of "diminished capacity" he would've walked through the front door, tripping the metal detectors in the process.

[@kodaxmax]

the law doesn't matter nearly as much as manipulating the jury.

[@jean-sebastienlemaire9542]

Regardless of the light sentencing, I'd say the fact that he committed suicide 2 years after being released is a pretty good indicator that he really was depressed.

[@vaiapatta8313]

Premeditation and diminished capacity are not mutually exclusive. There are some conditions like paranoid schizophrenia that can warp your sense of reality while still leaving you mentally capable of planning out a murder (not saying that paranoid schizophrenia generally makes you homicidal, in most cases the mentally ill are not violent). You should read the excellent short story "The telltale heart" by Edgar Allan Poe, which illustrates exactly this point. The protagonist is clearly out of touch with reality, and yet he is perfectly able to intelligently plan and carry out a murder.

[@kodaxmax]

@@jean-sebastienlemaire9542 You don't have to be depressed to be suicidal. Especially for a guy prone to violent emotional outbursts, who probably thought he had no future. We already know how he felt just about not having that specific job. after getting out he now has no hope of ever getting a good job, let alone his dream job. Though i want to be clear, this all just speculation based on the info in the video.

[@MayDawn519]

What's upsetting about the twinkie defense is that they didn't even need lie about it for it to be funny. From my understanding, a good summary of the defense is "No self respecting reasonable person would ever eat a twinkie", which is absolutely hilarious.

[@Winasaurus]

Literally "He wasn't mentally capable of murdering. The proof is he willingly ate a twinkie. Only mad men do that."

[@sixstringedthing]

/looks guiltily at empty KFC bag, twitches slightly/

[@kittykitties4220]

@@sixstringedthing I highly recommend you seek counselling before this gets any worse.

[@maxwellhanesworth2656]

Did you watch the video? As he explains that’s very much not the defense. The Twinkie was a brief reference to how a man know for being health conscious exhibited symptoms of depression such as a complete reversal into eating lots of junk food.

[@MrDirtydisco]

The Affluenza Defense is the weirdest defense Ive ever heard off, and also probably the most sinister.

[@smilwastaken]

The "I'm rich so therefore I'm special" defense

[@dhama5804]

"You hang them all." One of the most haunting quotes in fiction I remember. It was a twin-like situation except with three (triplets). The reason behind that argument was framed as a way to deter future occurrences.

[@MrCTWIST]

Please do one on the time a guy sued MTN dew after finding a dead rat in his can. Pepsi successfully defended the argument by proving that a rat would completely dissolve by the time the man would have supposedly opened it.

[@macsen5422]

🧐"a guy sued MTN dew after ALLEGEDLY finding a dead rat in his can" Let me lawyer that for you Edit: y'all right, ALLEGEDLY

[@NimhLabs]

Pepsi is just all, "yeah... this vile fluid is awful, and the fact we are able to legal sell this to you is both a mockery of the FDA and a blasphemy to the notion of any kind of God that isn't the sort of thing HP Lovecraft would describe" as their defense xD

[@jeffreypierson2064]

@@NimhLabs No. It is just highly acidic. The citric acid that gives it a citrus flavor, and the carbonic acid from carbonating the soda make it highly acidic.

[@mikieswart]

@@macsen5422 _…allegedly_

[@Colopty]

@@jeffreypierson2064 Which of course isn't a food safety issue since living bodies are perfectly capable of regulating their own pH to an extent that can handle an acidic drink.

[@theflamerises499]

The guy climbed through a window to avoid metal detectors. Sounds like he went in with the intent to shoot someone.

[@esteemedmortal5917]

Agreed. That’s flagrant premeditation to me.

[@be8420]

Dan White was a bad person and the world was made better by his departure.

[@Rickinsf]

SF cops covered for him by leaving out parts of his interview wherein he divulged "premeditation," and "intent," thus sparing him from the gas chamber...he ended up gassing himself a few years later in his garage with car exhaust.

[@Vexas345]

"Terrorism- the unlawful use of violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims." He went in to commit an act of terrorism.

[@makinapacal]

@@Rickinsf If this is indeed the case I am disgusted.

[@wesleyewert1023]

I think my favorite legal defence was when Tucker Carlson got out of slander charges by claiming that his news show could not be expected to be factual and no one could take anything he says seriously. it's just so utterly ridiculous

[@punchkitten874]

This story was so funny! Tucker Carlson has an opinion show. His show isn't news - he's as legally liable for slander as Stephen Colbert 🤣

[@LynetteTheRogue]

I think the ultimate argument showdown would be: Lawyer who always answer "it depends" Vs Toddlers who always ask " Why?"

[@jenconvertibles]

Fun Fact: A band called Dead Kennedys were so outraged by the Twinkie case that they released a song called “I fought the law”, a parody of a song by The Clash, but changed the lyric from “I fought the law and the law won” to “I fought the law and I won”, and then “I am the law so I won”. Other choice lyrics include “Twinkies are the best friend I ever had” and “The law don’t mean shit if you’ve got the right friends”. Worth a listen if you get time

[@KingKalashnikov]

Gotta love Dead Kennedys

[@formicidaeinc.8075]

The reason I came here lol

[@braedencooper683]

Scrolled down for this comment!

[@asvarien]

As someone who has suffered from major depression all their life, I can definitively state it has not diminished my capacity to tell right from wrong.

[@seantaggart7382]

Indeed

[@judithkimball1209]

You can find more details about this on Human Behavioral Psychology by Robert Sapolsky. It was not just about depression, but the additional variables.

[@doingitwron]

You clearly haven't eaten enough twinkies

[@mooselove]

If anything if makes me more likely to notice the difference and have less energy to commit a crime

[@rdizzy1]

Effects from clinical depression are highly subjective, and can vary wildly from person to person. Which is why, again, anecdotal experiences are largely useless.

[@E_D___]

As an ex-cop I have heard about an interesting story about twins. Both twins were known as criminals with a history of crime. One of them was recorded trying to illegally sell guns. But no one could understand from the voice which twin it was, the evidence fell on trail. Unfortunately I don't know more about that case, I heard about it from someone who was in charge of the people that heard said recording

[@ShaCaro]

It might be of the vaguest of interests to you to know that in a recent (as in Q3/Q4 2022) Dutch case involving one of a pair of identical twin brothers, DNA managed to identify which of the two was the culprit. Apparently it was a first when it comes to distinguishing identical twins via DNA.

[@KonkeyVG]

It's really depressing that a judge needed to watch a music video to understand that someone's material conditions can lead them to a life of criminality. That judge has no doubt given 100s of strict sentences to people who have come from as bad backgrounds, however didn't have the benefit of being a talented enough musician to tell their life story in a way that the judge would actually listen.

[@canesugar911]

So what?

[@KonkeyVG]

@@canesugar911?

[@LuckyCharms777]

Except that case was for not paying his taxes, and they showed the video as evidence that he wasn’t prepared to handle the responsibility of that much money.

[@guitarsoupify]

@@canesugar911 It's almost like a supposed "justice system" that fails to understand what actually creates social dis-function is a bad system that is doomed to fail.

[@canesugar911]

@@guitarsoupify the justice system is meant to punish criminal activity. Not your therapists.

[@kevinstephenson3531]

The Twinkie defence reputation isn’t that much better than what people think it is honestly. He admitted to murder he’s guilty. That was a bad jury. I don’t care what ideology he had.

[@jeremyc4811]

Thought the same thing. I kept waiting for the big reveal, but "he's been eating a lot of junk food lately" is a pretty BS demonstration of increased depression. By that standard, a person with some history of depression would just need to start eating some junk food before murdering someone to get a dramatically lessened sentence. It seems only a minor exaggeration of what actually happened in that case. I'm just trying to imagine any of the homicide suspects in my city trying that same angle, and it would absolutely not fly. But for some reason reactionary, fascist politicians seem to face a more lenient judiciary.

[@shadowprince4482]

Yeah it held about as much water as the Chewbacca defense. If that happened today the company would probably release a picture of the nutrition label for Twinkies with "1st degree murder" as 0%.

[@Foolish188]

All to many people see everything through the lens of We versus the Other. Sounds like the Jury thought of the two Socialists (one Homosexual) as Others.

[@Smidge204]

"He admitted to murder he’s guilty." - You can confess to a crime you didn't commit. It's not unheard of that people try to confess to a crime in order to protect someone else, only to have their confession thrown out because they're obviously lying. (Not to say that's what happened in that specific case, just saying admission of guilt does not automatically mean you are guilty.)

[@kevinstephenson3531]

@@Smidge204 I don’t disagree but I saw his smirk and I shot him should be a damning confession. And the fact he shot and killed two people is even more obvious to that.

[@DarkTider]

True case from Danish law a few years back: The producer of a certain brand of luggage trolleys got sued by the retailer with the claim that poor sales of the product was caused by the logo of the producer not being prominent enough. The lawyer representing said producer, won the case by proving that the brand in question did NOT make customers more likely to buy the product, so whether it was featured prominently or not had no impact on the sales of said product.

[@hekkensnatser]

This is definitely the kind of ruling you would be happy with but not proud of. Reminds me of a case in the Netherlands where someone was cleared of suspicion as they could never fit in a Fiat 500.

[@johnladuke6475]

"Thanks for winning the case, you're a very creative corporate lawyer. You're also fired."

[@falkorornothing261]

Sounds right. No matter how small the label "twinkies" is, I'm still not buying that 💩.

[@naverilllang]

@@hekkensnatser if the car doesn't fit...

[@Oturan20]

@@falkorornothing261 The few times I have eaten Twinkies, They always taste like disappointment. And Zingers are _worse,_ they're like Fuzzy Pink Twinkies, The fuzziness comes from the coconut shavings.

[@ericmoulot9148]

Coming to this video I was angry about some murder case in Nigeria by a police officer who was released on "Beyond reasonable doubt" argument (The Apo six tragedy). Now I'm slightly less disgusted at the legal system. I realized it's not that it's corrupt or flawed. It's just imperfect, like most human endeavor, and attempts are made to better it. A friendly face like yours seems to have magically driven those points across. Keep up the good work!

[@nickbell8353]

I saw the twins' defense on Law and Order: SVU. Twin brothers killed a psychotherapist who was, in effect, abusing them, but they crafted things to where one could have an alibi for the other, and since DNA couldn't point out a culprit, the twins essentially got away with it.

[@snake21ab]

colombo was way smarter, he caught his twins

[@Salted_Fysh]

I have had severe depression for more than 10 years now and have had contact with many others who share my condition. I can absolutely guarantee you that *none* of us would ever say we have become unable to distinguish right from wrong due to a depressive phase. Depression works to suck your vitality inside a pit inside you and not to throw you in murderous fits of rage at others (which would actually go counter to Depression because a depressed person usually has diminished emotional response) or to suddenly erode your moral compass. In short: just because I may feel too tired to continue living and may have suicidal thoughts every few months, it has never even crossed my mind to put in the effort required to kill someone else. It's so much work. I'm appalled that this defense worked and I sincerely hope that in today's age where mental illness is more publicly understood, such a thing shall never come to pass again. Not being able to distinguish right from wrong my ass.

[@williamblazkowicz5587]

Please don't ice yourself. There is many things to live for, you can help many cats if you live.

[@hugs3385]

I hope you get out of your depression, I’ve never had it but I’m completely sure the condition is horrible

[@vituperation]

@@williamblazkowicz5587 I won't lie. Out of all the "you have so much to live for" things I have heard over the years, "You can help many cats if you live," is the single most compelling reason I've ever come across. It hasn't changed my mind (I already worked at an animal shelter and donate to them) but, hey, it gave me _paws_ to think about things.

[@kodaxmax]

@@vituperation The empty "i hope you get better" and "theres so much to live for" lines always annoy me. it's nice to see one with a practical and actionable advice.

[@jhemp]

Emil Cioran would have told you it's too late to off yourself. The bad things you've experienced have already happened and by ending life you miss out on better days. Additionally, he has said "Only optimists commit suicide, optimists who no longer succeed at being optimists. The others, having no reason to live, why would they have any reason to die?" From a logical perspective, after death is unknown, and you can always die tomorrow, so why not wait and see what life has to offer? Focus on what you think is meaningful, if you desire genuine connections with people read some books about developing bonds and join some clubs or take up some hobbies like cards. If you have deep inner machinations that you need to work through meet a therapist to help you undergo some CBT. Maybe you get your drive from learning, that's an easy fix, just learn something new. At the end of the day, the value and meaning in your life is yours to create, but it's up to you to find it. I realize this is an unorthodox way to say you should keep living, but sometimes when you're at the bottom it's much easier to say "I can die any day, and who knows that it's going to be any better than this, so I'll keep living." You'll get through the slump if you put in time and push yourself to grow, you may need help from an outside party, you may not, but time is your canvas and you will decide how to sculpt it even if that means not sculpting it at all.

[@r.b.rozier9692]

Did you just tell me...they defended a former cop...by saying he didn't know the difference between right and wrong?

[@amphiumaiii7058]

On top of that he was one of those “law and order” types.

[@r.b.rozier9692]

@@amphiumaiii7058 like...I feel that we should all be for law and order... I think saying you are "law and order" tells me that you are not.

[@amphiumaiii7058]

@@r.b.rozier9692 “Law and order” is political speak for increased police presence and tougher sentences. It’s ironic coming from someone who would commit murder and then get a light sentence.

[@r.b.rozier9692]

@@amphiumaiii7058 that is a very pesimistic view on those of us who believe in the law (wouldn't be headed to law school if I didn't) and order (do the crime, do the time) this man was neither of those. Remember the loudest mouthed bully you went to school with? remember how he, most likely, got put on his ass by the smallest, quietest kid? Tough guys don't have to tell you they are tough, honest guys don't have to tell you they are honest...see a common theme here? that is my point.

[@AbstractTraitorHero]

@@r.b.rozier9692 The law is too unjust to believe in personally for me. Mostly made completly arbitrarily and does immense harm, far more then good. I politically am an Anarchist, so while obviously like anyone, I believe in some kind of rules, we obviously believe in far more egalitarian ways of making rulings.

[@The-Rose-and-the-Cross]

The strangest/most absurd that I've heard of so far is 'he was drugged before launching a coup, so he's not guilty of rebellion '.

[@grogery1570]

There is a sports equivalent of the twins defense. In a south Australian football match one twin was reported for striking (punching) another player. He later claimed that he was on the other side of the field playing a different position while his twin was on the side where the penalty occurred. Unfortunately for the twins they forgot that uniforms have numbers on them and they got suspended for striking and an extra game was given to them both for being stupid!

[@jaimel88]

I saw an NRL video recently of a pair of brothers (not twins) defusing a scuffle by play-fighting each other (as brothers do). The ref had a laugh and everyone else involved just walked away thinking "these weirdos" (I assume lol)

[@jonasdatlas4668]

Your honor, my client is a goat. He can’t help that he spreads chaos and destruction, it’s just in his nature.

[@Blokewood3]

Bah!

[@yourinnerlawyer4035]

@@Blokewood3 I love that it says "translate to English" under your comment. 😂

[@captainzork6109]

Nice profile picture! That flag's aesthetics is one of my favorite (:

[@jonasdatlas4668]

@@captainzork6109 it’s a really nice colour combination, isn’t it? I actually have a photo somewhere of a sunset that vaguely matches it, I use it as a phone background :)

[@chintex_]

Nice flag

[@KennethLongcrier]

Twin's defense: Remember, finger prints are set in the Amniotic fluid so they are actually unique to the twins. This means that you better hope that they don't finger-print you when you are arrested because even Clones won't share the fingerprints with the original (Let alone twin.)

[@RubbrChickn]

I imagine here in the US they would also look at my driver's license and keep track of who's in which cell

[@Dr.MikeGranato]

Actually, it’s never been empirically established that no 2 fingerprints are the same. However, we do have evidence that there exists many sets of fingerprints which are “similar enough” that our identification systems cannot currently tell them apart. Now that’s not evidence against the fact that there’s no evidence of identical fingerprints, it’s evidence that our technology is likely neither sensitive nor specific enough for the job atm. As to the claim that fingerprints are established en utero, which is technically true to some degree, we do know that the genetic influences of finger prints are largely traditional genetics and little to do with epigenetics (the rate of silencing vs expression of already established genes) which are the only meaningful changes between identical twins, ie. Epigenetics account for almost the entirety of physical differences we see in twins outside of environmental influence. Then we must consider the evidence which demonstrates that fingerprints change over time both physiologically and environmentally, and in some cases, different enough to not be a match. Basically, fingerprinting isn’t science, it’s an assumption that we all accepted at face value

[@rolfs2165]

@@Dr.MikeGranato But it's only computer systems that are unable to tell those prints apart, because they don't look at the whole print, just a selection of points across them. If you have a human expert compare the prints, they'll see the differences.

[@KennethLongcrier]

@@Dr.MikeGranato They have, though, compared the finger-prints of several "Identical Twins" and confirmed that their fingerprints don't match. (There are several instances where foot-prints taken at birth were used by the parents to confirm twin identification.)

[@PlayerNerfed]

The issue with fingerprints is that they are analysed by human experts, however multiple cases have found the wrong person guilty based on a faulty analysis. Honestly no one source of evidence is 100% concrete, they should obviously be all taken together which becomes an issue for identical twins who live near one another if say they had no real alibi except by family. Everything but the fingerprints would be potentially the same and committing someone based on just finger prints is plain wrong.

[@csquared4538]

If curiosity stream was free content with ads I'd check it out. The barrier of needing to get my wallet from upstairs is too much to check out a new website.

[@AnagramGinger]

I sincerely wonder why =3 is in your video description. RWJ really brings back 2008 memories.

[@nacoran]

One of the weirder cases I remember hearing about was a woman who got a ticket for cutting through a McDonalds to get around a red light. She successfully argued that she was on a diet and had had a Big Mac Attack, but she'd managed to resist it at the last minute and rejoined traffic on the other side of the light. Weirdest DNA story I heard of was a guy who was in jail for rape, largely because of DNA evidence. He smuggled some of his semen out of the prison in condiment packages and a woman applied the ketchup, as it were, and claimed to be raped. When the DNA evidence matched his he claimed there must be someone else out there who had the same DNA as he did and he should be freed.

[@weberman173]

my brain is kinda... not understand that second story...

[@alittleantidote5852]

@@weberman173 a dude smuggled his seaman out of jail so some woman could "use" it and claim rape. Once the DNA tests proved it was him, the dude (still in jail and consequently unable to have raped the woman) claimed there was someone else out there who had the same DNA as him and used this argue his release.

[@jayrettarcularius5319]

@@weberman173 basically a prisoner went to jail for rape based on dna evidence. He then smuggled his semen out to a female accomplice who then claimed she was raped and presented said semen as evidence. The prisoner then claimed that as someone else had been raped after he had been jailed, he couldn't have been the culprit to the case he had been found guilty for. I'll give him points for creativity, but that's kinda not how dna evidence works afaik

[@th3thatguy631]

@@jayrettarcularius5319 that's funny af

[@lurrielee2755]

Did the second defense work?

[@PerovNigma]

Seeing this video's title, I'm reminded of the _Futurama_ episode where Cubert and Professor Farnsworth are both arrested. The charges against Cubert are dropped due to his age, and him being a clone of the Professor means to charge the Professor would be to charge a person of the same crime twice, which gets him off as well.

[@jennapeneueta-snyder200]

Yes!! Mom has her lawyer drop the charges against Cubert because he's a child and think he'll get too much sympathy and then the Professor is let off on the technically of double jeopardy lol

[@ChrisCaramia]

@@jennapeneueta-snyder200 And the jury was all set to find both guilty.

[@Compucles]

Obviously, that could only happen in a sci-fi comedy. If human cloning is achieved in real life, the clones will obviously be legally (and in every other way) treated as separate people.

[@huntinwabbits7933]

DNA mapping has increased to a level where you can 100% tell which twin did it. Twins DNA starts to "split off" or mutate the day they are born. We can tell one twin from another. Even clones (of sheep or cows) can be identified as individual. The DNA for example in the OJ case said that he might have one or two DNA matches in the world. But DNA tests at the time only matched a limited set of strands. Today, we can do the whole strand. Each of us is 100% individual - even twins and clones.

[@Axterix13]

It would still cause issues. Like with the drug dealing twins, they lost track of which was which due to arresting both. Or the case with the nightclub, where both twins were at the scene.

[@annonomous2158]

This talk of twins reminds of something that happened in my school days. I know about it because my brothers are non-identicle twins but were questioned nonetheless. Back story: a group of about 8 youths, male and female, all wearing our school blazer were seen by an eyewitness throwing rocks at a train that was passing. The witness shouted out the the group who bolted and the witness contacted the police. The only concrete identifier the witness could give was that 2 of the group were identical twin white boys with dirty blonde hair. Police came to the school and initially asked to see all twins in the school. With 670 students, we had what I believe was a high twin count of 18 and a half sets of twins. The half is because his parents sent him and his brother to different schools. Police eliminated him because his brother wouldn't have been in our uniform and couldn't have made it from the school to the incident site in the time frame. Next up, the girls. 8 pairs of ladies, plus 1 set that was 1 boy 1 girl. They were allowed to leave. That left 9 pairs of boys. 1 pair were red heads (actually strawberry blonde), 1 pair middle Eastern and 1 pair African. Down to 6. Including my brothers who were now the only dirty blondes left in the room. 2 of the pairs were bright blonde identical. 2 of the pairs were brunette identical. My brothers were dirty blondes, not identical. The last pair were 1 brunette, 1 dirty blonde non indentical. Police interviewed everyone, few had alibis, everyone denied it. In the end it was closed having failed to find the culprits, not because 1 twin did it and the othere didn't, simply because there were to many twins to single out the guilty brothers. And for reference, I was with one of my brothers at the time. Personally I think it was one of the bright blonde pairs, that were in my year and had a rep fro shoplifting but who could say.

[@jaimel88]

Great story 👬

[@deanwoodward8026]

Used to write/support jail management systems. Had a customer book in an suspect for murder. His identical twin brother got himself arrested for something (drunk driving?). At some point they managed to be in the same place at the same time (Recreation area, medical area, nobody's sure) and traded places... then the one in custody on the lesser charge got bailed out. He went to ground and the other (still in custody) started screaming that he was the one who should have been released and was being held unlawfully. Fingerprints backed him up- they had to let him go.

[@nenmaster5218]

For Chistmas, i'm gonna rewatch 'The War on Christmas' by Hbomberguy. And You?

[@witchofengineering]

There was another case with identical twins recently in Poland. One of them committed vehicular manslaughter and they both were in the care when that happened. However, in this case, after over 3 years, forensic specialists were able to determine which one was driving at that time.

[@SuperNuclearUnicorn]

"Earl Simmons, did you or did you not fail to file your taxes?" "DAMN RIGHT, AND I'LL DO IT AGAIN"

[@overlydramaticpanda]

Honestly, I would have thought the fact that White *entered the building via a window to avoid the metal detectors at the door* would have been enough to completely dismiss any claim of "manslaughter" or "diminished capacity". That fact alone proves that the shooting was absolutely premeditated, at least to some degree. Hell, I'd personally argue that the mere fact he took a gun with him in the first place while intending to directly confront someone he had a blatant issue with demonstrates a clear element of premeditation to the shooting... Also, as someone who has regularly suffered bouts of chronic depression throughout the majority of my life, screw him and his lawyers for using depression as a justification for murder. Not once have I or anyone I've met with depression *ever* been unable to tell right from wrong in the midst of a depressive episode.

[@Melesniannon]

I just want to say that the phrase "White felt he was betrayed by Milk" is just gold.

[@corwin32]

Police, knocking on door. “Mr Thomas! Open up! We have a warrant for your arrest!” Me with a guitar: “OK, OK. Think. What rhymes with “innocent?””

[@robertbeste]

Traumatized like fiddy cent?

[@ekbrandon93]

I'm a criminology and criminal justice major with a lawyer for a dad and an obsession with true crime- oh, and I also happen to have identical twin nieces. As a result I'm pretty much constantly thinking about the possibilities of one of my nieces being involved in a crime, and how being an identical twin would complicate things. 😂😂😂

[@Daemonworks]

Though, dark other side of twin defence is how many people have faced charges, and been convicted, because an eye witness was absolutely, positively sure they had ID'd the right person, and it was some random person who looked kinda like the actual person. The entire system of lineups and the like has been reinvented numerous times to try and correct for that.

[@jhardman1876]

10:28 You know until he said that the scenario wasn't actually a Zack and Cody episode I was fully buying it, thought I'd just missed an episode of Suite Life on Deck because honestly it sounds like something they would do

[@Someguyhere111]

9:50 - "I want a lawyer to get me off." You gotta pay extra for that.

[@MileHighScharfenberg]

16 years ago I worked with White’s retired defense attorney who pled the Twinkie defense on White’s behalf … we called him Peg-leg Bob… however I believe Bob is no longer with us, he was fighting a number of health issues at the time I worked with him. It’s true they barely mentioned twinkies, the real defense was his depression

[@lunaticgaming7967]

1:55 that artists rendering of DMX is literally the stuff nightmares are made of...

[@yourinnerlawyer4035]

The Twinkie defense still pisses me off even though it has nothing to do with me and happened before I was even born. 😂 It was so insane, Harvey Milk deserved more.

[@yourinnerlawyer4035]

@yossarian I would hope so!!!

[@EmmaDilemma039]

Ikr. Before watching I already knew about the twinkie defense and what the actual argument was, and it still makes me mad to hear about it. Lots of people are depressed. They don't go on a killing spree because of it.

[@TheStevensouthwell]

Regardless of your politics or your views of the homosexual rights movement he was pivotal in; Harvey Milk, while in his 30's, had an ongoing sexual relationship with at 16 year old suffering from depression who later committed suicide. At that time the age of consent was 18 in California.

[@senorsnout4417]

@@TheStevensouthwell Okay, but what does that have to do with anything? If that's true, he deserved to be arrested and given due process, not shot by a former peer because they were depressed.

[@StarUnreachable]

I agree. You can't claim you're so mentally ill you can't understand right from wrong, but still know to sneak through a window to take a gun into city hall without being caught.

[@pulpted9937]

Objection: mary Kate and Ashley didn’t switch places to get their parents back together. It was Lindsey Lohan 😂

[@monikute9]

I thought I was the only one that caught that haha

[@chromaticification]

True, think he got it confused with It Takes Two with M&A, has a lot of plot similarities to Parent Trap 😅

[@xEvilRaptorx]

A couple years back my friends and I had this same convo... for some reason we all thought it was M & A til someone spoke up, "wtf are you talking about. That was Lindsey Lohan"... "Oh sht you're right wtf"

[@deniseforestek9677]

We absolutely love your channel. We tease my husband (a recent amputee) that he's studying for a law degree from Legal Eagle.

[@sammclain6040]

Idk if you’ve ever talked about this before, but I’d love a video about when Clarence Darrow defended Loeb and Leopold by arguing they lacked free will from a philosophical perspective

[@reluctantlydancing]

Everything about the White Trial is so upsetting and unfair. Decades later, and it still hurts.

[@RCSDominoToppling]

Yeah I still don't see what's so misunderstood about the Twinkie defense. Man straight up killed a guy for standing up for queer equality and got a tiny sentence because he ate some junk food. There's no way you can possibly spin that which isn't horrific.

[@theamateurobserver]

@@RCSDominoTopplingit really is poetic that he finally met justice at his own hands

[@jean-bastienjoly5962]

@@theamateurobserver wait what happened?

[@I_Eat_Lemons]

@@theamateurobserver Ah yes, ending ones own life is poetic now.

[@supervegito2277]

@@jean-bastienjoly5962 >White served five years of a seven-year prison sentence. Less than two years after his release, he returned to San Francisco, and later died by suicide. Quoted from wikipedia

[@bouli3576]

There has been a case in Brazil a few years ago, when a girl accused a twin brother of engrossing her, and she asked compensation money. The defense of both twins was "it's not me, it's him !" and DNA tests were inconclusive. Therefore the judge ruled that both should pay compensation, and that they should sort it out between themselves.

[@abegarfield7638]

Their DNA would be different. Twins having the same DNA is one of those things invented for fiction, like only using 10% of your brain or cow tipping (something people swear they've done, they haven't, cows lie down to sleep.) Everyone's DNA is different. I'm a twin and I don't share DNA with my sibling.

[@haengeltheknight1212]

@@abegarfield7638 it’s Brazil, not the US, you expected what?

[@gzer0x]

@@abegarfield7638 every human has 99.9% the same DNA. DNA can be damaged by millions of factors including moisture, temperature, and light/radiation. There have been cases of DNA samples to “prove” crimes, have since been re-examined, and been unable to tell the difference between human and animal.

[@henriquepacheco7473]

@@abegarfield7638 Univitellinic twins actually sometimes have the same nucleic DNA. It's not a 100% thing, last I checked, but it's not something that has never happened, either.

[@henriquepacheco7473]

@@haengeltheknight1212 Plenty of US cases have had inconclusive DNA tests. This isn't a Brazil thing, it's a DNA test thing.

[@lauraackerman5419]

I love these videos. I even signed up for Nebula/Curiosity specifically for Legal Eagle. I just wish there was some earlier notification that the longer version was on Nebula so I don't have to watch twice since KZbin pops up notifications on new Legal Eagle for me. Watch 20 minutes o lyrics to find out there's an extended version on Nebula.

[@carmattvidz4426]

I always loved that guy who sang a soulful apology to the tune of Adele's smash hit "Hello," for his sentencing hearing

[@MysteicVoltronus]

I want to hear about a case where a witness knew the twins so well that they knew exactly who did it and repeatedly provided they could easily tell them apart, getting the correct one convicted.

[@Sunny-ot1vo]

That would be a close family or friend. Most sane people wouldn’t choose to hand over someone they care about and let them die, even if they broke laws via drug trafficking.

[@Serenity_yt]

@@Sunny-ot1vo Exactly. That would have to be one pissed of family/ aquaintance and not on a possible death penalty charge. I know lots of "identical" twins you can always tell them apart if you know them well enough especially as adults (moles, movements, speech, slight hight difference, muscle tone, teeth, tan if they have different sun exposure, after puberty sometimes even slight facial differences, ...). Doesn't mean I'd testify to that in court especially if there is the chance that that one time I'd be wrong cause adrenaline (one hell of a drug) or sth.

[@abigailpulliam6996]

@@Sunny-ot1vo depends on how Terrible the sibling. I'd sell out one of my brothers for a meal at Olive Garden. The other? I'd fake an alibi for him. I Did actually have to tell the first brother that I would not be a character witness for a court appearance he had. He (allegedly) got his toddler high out of spite and got visitation rights suspended. I told him right out that I would not lie to a judge for him when he asked. Also at the time he lived in a one-room shack in the woods, and that wasn't a great place to have a small child

[@DaveXXX]

Law and Order SVU had a great episode with twins where the guy being accused that didn't do anything was adopted and had absolutely no clue he even had a sibling let alone a twin, but the twin knew about him and was trying to pin crimes on him purposely for some reason and even got the same tattoo haircut and clothes as him just to try and screw him over. Was a really cool episode. It's called Double Strands, season 13 episode 4

[@Sunny-ot1vo]

@N Fels very interesting. Sounds like something out of a movie. It was naive but was there a reason IDs weren’t popular?

[@mytech6779]

@@Sunny-ot1vo Yeah, such mandatory ID laws were a basic tool used by the nazi party to target various groups, the Jews being the most obvious example. Besides that if you need mandatory IDs to keep basic order then your system has deeper inherent flaws.

[@andrewwilson6432]

Hey LegalEagle can you talk about NFTs and copyright? Alot of artists are having their works stolen, minted and sold by others. Isnt that illegal?

[@NestedQuantifier]

Are you serious? First of all, not registering doesn't mean dumb. Second of all, copyright protection is automatically applied. Third of all, you'd be guilty of fraud. "Stupid enough to buy" is not a fault of buyers.

[@NewfieCatgirl]

That DMX story is so sweet. It's nice the judge has a heart.

[@ignitionfrn2223]

0:35 - Chapter 1 - DMX plyas song in court. Gets reduced sentence ? 3:35 - Chapter 2 - The twinkie defense. Junk food & diminished capacity 10:05 - Chapter 3 - Twin avoid death penalty when authorities can can't them apart ? 13:00 - End roll ads

[@semja]

More of these kinds of videos would be great. Education is key

[@crusader-yv9zr]

I remember one instance in where two men who looked exactly the same, were held in the same prison, and had the same name, but they were completely unrelated and most of the prison's staff had no idea they were two people. I can't recall the names though.

[@zogar8526]

Even with identical twins though, finger prints should be enough to separate them. I mean in cases where prints aren't left behind or they don't know which they arrested first I can see it still being an issue. But most cases it seems like prints should be able to sort things out.

[@sourcererseven3858]

I thought the same... Maybe their police is different, but shouldn't they have taken the fingerprints of each of them as soon as they were arrested (when they got to the station)? I got the impression that the second twin was arrested much later, presumably after the first one had already been registered at the station. Even if they made the stupid mistake of putting them both into the same cell. Now, I read the article that was on screen briefly, and it says that the problem was that the officer could not point out which of the people in attendance was the person he arrested first. That would still be a problem even with fingerprints, but surely that's not enough to just let them both go free.

[@sapphirII]

From what I heard from my mother year ago, her late husband used to do porn when it was illegal. His lawyer's defense rhetoric was that his right to film himself having sex, and it wasn't his fault if people watched the videos. Apparently, it worked🤷‍♂️.

[@cuzz63]

That kind of sounds like the guy who made videos of him having sex with prostitutes. His claim was that he wasnt paying them for sex, he was paying them for acting.

[@henriquepacheco7473]

@@cuzz63 That's what happens in places where the production of pornography is legal, but prostitution isn't.

[@lordnul1708]

I wonder if you have plans of discussing more weird defenses that actually worked. In particular, I'm curious about ones that genuinely *shouldn't* have worked but somehow did.

[@Spideythegreat1]

Just off the thumbnail. All I could assume was “Tell em about the Twinkie.” Defense. I’m glad it worked that way as soon as we start.

[@slicric131]

That twin problem is pretty interesting. Twins could get into a lot of trouble and get away with it 😂

[@pridelander06]

If nothing else, this channel has taught me that there's always more to the original story than meets the eye when people throw out words like "Twinkie defense" in a dismissive manner. Edit: I'm speaking more generally about cases/legal terms that have taken on different meanings than the actual details surrounding them, not a judgement on the outcome of the White case.

[@letolethe3344]

No, not really. It should be dismissed. It's outrageous and disgusting that he got off. I've struggled with depression my whole life. I've never murdered anyone. He threw a temper tantrum because he didn't like the consequences of his actions.

[@BooserBoi]

@@letolethe3344 yeah, but that doesn’t have anything to do with what OP said. His point is stated in the video, people thought “oh a Twinkie made him do it” when that wasn’t even close to what the defense was saying.

[@pridelander06]

@@BooserBoi appreciate that, I've added an edit to make it clearer.

[@johnladuke6475]

To add another layer, I've actually heard people claim in the past that the "Twinkie defense" had something to do with out-of-control blood sugar from a steady diet of junk food causing some kind of delirious fit. It's interesting at least to know the actual claim that was made in court.

[@cericat]

Yeah this and the hot coffee lawsuit are popular in the misinformed context; I still see Liebeck v McDonalds brought up to this day as a BS lawsuit, which it was not.

[@nicolearriaga9887]

Your videos are always so informative!💛 if you haven’t watched it, I recommend Woman In Gold (2015), a movie centered on a case of art restitution.

[@chrisc9769]

Question. For the identical twins defense. In almost Every crime documentary at some point Fingerprints are brought up as being Completely Unique to Each individual. So my question is Couldn't they use fingerprints to differentiate between a pair of twins?

[@silentjay01]

I would love for you to do a breakdown of the "John Fogarty sounding too much like Credence Clearwater Revival" legal case.

[@thisisme4074]

the what???

[@silentjay01]

@@thisisme4074 In the 1980s, John Fogerty was sued by his former label & bandmates because they felt one of his new songs (Old Man Down the Road) sounded too similar to the CCR song "Run through the Jungle" (which Fogerty also wrote and performed lead vocals on).

[@henriquepacheco7473]

@@silentjay01 His defense wasbringing his guitar to the courtroom, playing both songs and explaining the difference, absolute chad behavior

[@IMBlakeley]

Very much less serious case. A number of years ago the police came across my brother kipping on the door step of a local shop following a long boozy night. They arrested and charged him with being drunk and disorderly at the later appearance in front of the beak he successfully argued since he was asleep when the police woke him he was far to drunk to be disorderly. Got the charge reduced to the lessor of being drunk in a public place. Conditional discharge as I recall.

[@sarahsays194]

Hello! New subscriber here! Just wanted to wish you a Merry Christmas and a happy new year! Thank you for bringing the lawyer world to us normies in a great format.

[@casinodelonge]

Mery Christmas Mr Eagle and thank you for your content and snappy suits.

[@CapCrunch45]

Would you do a video on the case where a truck driver in Colorado is sentenced to 110 years in prison for “vehicular homicide”? From my understanding of the case, it seems as if accident was due to faulty brakes and the driver had no intention of killing someone. Apparently, the judge claimed he had to follow Colorado law on minimum consecutive sentencing, despite his reservations on passing such a sentence. Now, over three million people have signed a petition to the Colorado Governor for clemency.

[@CapCrunch45]

Hence the reason I posted this comment. I feel like I don’t know enough about this case where the 110 year sentence is warranted.

[@mickware5289]

Naw, the dude deliberately passed several emergency ramps that are designed for that precise scenario. As a trained CDL holder, he knew exactly what he was doing. Thankfully, 3 million people can be ignorant, and it really doesn't matter.

[@cr10001]

Thing was, he was charged with causing four deaths and a swag of injuries, and the Colorado law specified minimum sentences for each charge and stated that all penalties had to be CUMULATIVE. It gave the judge no leeway. This is why it totalled 110 years. Compare that with deliberate murder that might get the perpetrator 10 or 20 years. (Or 5 if your name is White). So the sentence was obviously way excessive. Based on that, you could get life for littering, if you dumped a load of trash and the authorities charged you separately for each piece.

[@sourcererseven3858]

@@cr10001 yes someone killing 4 people should absolutely get 4 times the time in jail. What the hell are you talking about, do you mean to say after my 1st murder I get as many for free as I want? Congratulations, you just took away any incentive the truck driver might have had to try to stop his vehicle after hitting the first person. Might as well have some fun now that he already killed someone. And nice simile there, comparing people to litter. But to take you up on that: Yes, a corporation dumping 4 tons of toxic waste into a river should absolutely get a more severe penalty than someone spitting their gum on the ground. And even more so if they did it every month for ten years.

[@cr10001]

@@sourcererseven3858 Your post is utterly ludicrous. It is absolutely NOT the case that the trucky had four, consecutive, independent choices of whether to hit a person or not. (or 25, or whatever). It was ONE event, he ran into the traffic jam. After that it was pure chance what the casualties were. He also did NOT intend to hurt or kill anybody, he would have been mightily relieved if nobody had been hurt. The worst you can say is that he was incompetent or possibly reckless. This is why the law takes intent and circumstances into account, and that Colorado law (which prevents the judge from doing just that) is a bad law, and why the Governor overruled it.

[@oshkoshjosh2224]

You should cover the whole trucking thing in Colorado, interested in whether you think the company should have been charged, and why they weren't even with them failing safety inspections since 2017.

[@onelostgamer4074]

how have you not done law abidding citizen yet? this is a MUST! love ur vids!

[@tromedlovdrolmai]

at 1:50, there's a reason that not even the Joker will try and take on the IRS

[@darthplagueis13]

Here in germany there was a simular twin-case a few years back. Basically, there was a major heist in a big department store in which a large amount of jewelry was stolen. One of the thieves accidentially lost a rubber glove with some DNA on it. The DNA matched that of two twins who were known to the local authorities as part of the criminal scene around the city, but there was no telling which one of the two the glove belonged to. The funny thing is of course that there's a good chance that both were actually part of the heist, but there wasn't any more evidence to support that claim, so they couldn't charge the two with anything.

[@nenmaster5218]

For Xmas, i'm gonna rewatch 'The War on Christmas' by HBomberguy. And You?

[@MalloonTarka]

@@nenmaster5218 It's a good video, but why are you spamming this everywhere? I'm pretty sure Harry wouldn't want you to do this.

[@nenmaster5218]

@@MalloonTarka Simple reason, i wanna spread science, education, and fun. Especially if it's fused to 1 single thing.

[@nenmaster5218]

@@MalloonTarka Also, i literally said: I wanna spread joy and this is literally my Xmas-Gift for ya. Yeah?

[@cr10001]

@@nenmaster5218 Reported for spam

[@linkeffect82]

Great set of strange defenses, and an interesting historic diving!

[@sethennis3316]

The one for DMX makes me happy, song still hurts knowing the meaning to it, pushing ahead and how he still succumbed to his demons

[@haruruben]

5-7 years is far too lenient for executing two people especially government officials executing their duties aka just doing their jobs

[@KingBrandonm]

Exactly. But anti LGBT sentiment was very strong back then. The jury is absolutely to blame for being a shit jury. He should have gotten 15-20 minimum.

[@haruruben]

@@KingBrandonm in hindsight their client would have been better served by being in prison for a longer period of time to protect himself from himself and maybe work out some of these issues over time. Not sure that getting your client off the hook is always in the client’s best interests

[@makinapacal]

@@haruruben Yes!!

[@Lolo_Antonio-FryEmUpFan]

@@KingBrandonm still to this day

[@KingBrandonm]

@user-gj4jg6jz1t Among a very vocal and violent minority, but the general populace is much more accepting of the LGBT today than ever before. It would be a lot harder for this kind of jury to be selected today. That's why the bigots have moved on to straight-up terrorism. Society has rejected them and they refuse to go quietly into the night, so they will put the marginalized communities they believe they are superior to back in their place at the barrel of a gun. My question is when do we decide to stop treating them like they aren't batshit insane and declare them the terrorists that they are?

[@tuscan9617]

As an identical twin I’ve always kept the idea that I can get away with murder in my back pocket.

[@ammalyrical5646]

make sure to always cover your hands. I still don't get why finger prints weren't mentioned at all. Someone pulling a gun in the street isn't necessarily going to wear gloves. And someone driving a car wouldn't always wear gloves or purposefully burn their hands to evade finger prints. Finger prints are unique amongst identical twins too, which is something many people don't seem to think about... I just find it weird why you wouldn't take finger prints from keys or vehicles people arrived in. That way they could've distinguished between the two. Although I think it's good they got away. I'm against the death penalty no matter what. It already has happened too often that the convicted wasn't actually guilty. Here the people were and I'm still against it. Why stoop to the killer's or criminal's level?

[@HeroesFanXL]

Unless you murder your twin, of course...

[@AC3handle]

I'm very glad you're able to get back to odd and fictional court cases. At least for now. NO names shall be mentioned lest the minions of said name be summoned.

[@Phoenix7786]

I heartily thank you for where you placed your sponsorship! Have a thumbs up!

[@johnladuke6475]

Well that's an interesting clarification. I've previously heard the "Twinkie defense" explained as some kind of delerious state caused by out-of-control blood sugar from eating only junk food, primarily Twinkies. It's interesting to know that there's a whole lot more to the actual claim made in court, and a much deeper story behind why the murders even happened.

[@sourcererseven3858]

and reading some of the other comments, it's interesting to consider the alternative story that it was just a convenient reason for the jury to claim reasonable doubt and let "one of theirs" off the hook. Of course having watched a 5 minute essay ont he KZbins does not make me an expert to judge on this 🤣