Dan White
The Dan White Trial
Andy Baryeh
Defendants
Background Information
Daniel James commonly known as Dan White was born in Long Beach, California on September 2, 1946. He was raised by Irish-American working class parents in a Roman Catholic household in the Visitacion Valley neighborhood of San Francisco. He was the second of nine children of his parents. He was a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. He was an assassin who murdered San Francisco Mayor George Moscone, and Supervisor Harvey Milk, on Monday, November 27, 1978.
Name of Prosecutor
Thomas F. Norman
Background
Thomas Norman was a veteran assistant district attorney who came under enormous criticism when he did not win a death penalty verdict against Dan White for the 1978 slayings of Mayor George Moscone, and Supervisor Harvey Milk. He prosecuted almost 400 murder cases before juries in his 37-year career in the district attorney's office, but it was the 1979 trial of White for the murders of the mayor and the city's first openly gay supervisor that made him known to thousands of San Franciscans. He died on Wednesday, July 1 2009 at UCSF's comfort care unit due to illness.
Civil or Criminal case?
It was a civil case
Summarization of the crime
On November 27, 1978, 32-year-old Dan White entered the San Francisco City Hall by crawling in through a basement window. He adopted this unorthodox means of access to avoid negotiating a metal detector in the main entrance, for reasons which would soon become clear. Once inside, White breezed through the familiar corridors of power. He was on a retrieval mission. Earlier that summer, this ambitious young politician had impetuously resigned his post as a city supervisor, citing financial difficulties; now he wanted that job back. Only one man could make that possible: Mayor George Moscone. White reached Moscone's office and was invited in.
The two men talked, or rather argued, for several minutes. As the exchange heated up, Moscone made it plain that he had no intention of reappointing White, who had become a political liability, whereupon White drew a. 38-caliber Smith and Wesson revolver that had been tucked into his belt and pumped four bullets into his former boss. After reloading, White hunted down long-time political foe Harvey Milk, another city supervisor. Five shots ended Milk's life. White ran from the building, only to surrender to the authorities one hour later.
Evidence Presented
At the trial, White's defense team argued that his mental state at the time of the killings was one of diminished capacity due to depression. They argued, therefore, he was not capable of premeditating the killings, and thus was not legally guilty of first-degree murder. Forensic psychiatristMartin Blinder testified that White was suffering from depression and pointed to several behavioral symptoms of that depression, including the fact that White had gone from being highly health-conscious to consuming sugary foods and drinks. When the prosecution played a recording of White's confession, several jurors wept as they listened to what was described as "a man pushed beyond his endurance". Many people familiar with City Hall claimed that it was common to enter through the window to save time. A police officer friend of White claimed to reporters that several officials carried weapons at this time and speculated that White carried the extra ammunition as a habit that police officers had. The jury found White guilty of voluntary manslaughter rather than first-degree murder. Outrage within San Francisco's gay community over the resulting seven-year sentence sparked the city's White Night riots; general disdain for the outcome of the court case led to the elimination of California's "diminished capacity" law.[8][9] Famed psychiatrist and critic of forensic psychiatry, Thomas Szasz, gave a speech to a large audience in San Francisco in June of 1979 calling the White verdict a “travesty of justice” which he blamed on the diminished capacity defense.[10][11]
