Las penas del Agente Smith

De vez en cuando hace su aparición en este blog alguna mención a la defensa Chewbacca, una argucia utilizada por una caricatura de Johnnie Cochran (el abogado que defendió a O. J. Simpson) en un episodio de South Park. La técnica es al parecer una parodia de la utilizada durante el juicio real, y se basa en una serie de argumentos que no tienen nada que ver con el juicio, completamente sin sentido, y que terminan en un espectacular non sequitur:

Ladies and gentlemen of this supposed jury, Chef’s attorney would certainly want you to believe that his client wrote “Stinky Britches” ten years ago. And they make a good case. Hell, I almost felt pity myself! But, ladies and gentlemen of this supposed jury, I have one final thing I want you to consider. Ladies and gentlemen, this is Chewbacca. Chewbacca is a Wookiee from the planet Kashyyyk. But Chewbacca lives on the planet Endor. Now think about it; that does not make sense! […] Why would a Wookiee, an eight-foot tall Wookiee, want to live on Endor, with a bunch of two-foot tall Ewoks? That does not make sense! But more important, you have to ask yourself: What does this have to do with this case? Nothing. Ladies and gentlemen, it has nothing to do with this case! It does not make sense! Look at me. I’m a lawyer defending a major record company, and I’m talkin’ about Chewbacca! Does that make sense? Ladies and gentlemen, I am not making any sense! None of this makes sense! And so you have to remember, when you’re in that jury room deliberatin’ and conjugatin’ the Emancipation Proclamation, [approaches and softens] does it make sense? No! Ladies and gentlemen of this supposed jury, it does not make sense! If Chewbacca lives on Endor, you must acquit! The defense rests.

Añadan otra técnica ficticia a esta lista. Leyendo la transcripción de un debate entre Richard Dawkins y Steve Pinker, me entero de la existencia de la defensa del Twinkie, que en el artículo anterior es referenciada como algo real pero que snopes.com aclara que es falso. Y, sin embargo, interesante de contar. La historia, de forma corta, es que durante un juicio se arguyó con éxito que el acusado había cometido los crímenes de los que se le acusaba bajo la influencia de Twinkie’s y otros tipos de comida malsana. En realidad no ocurrió nada de eso. Luego la prensa, tirando a la basura las diferencias entre causa y efecto, hizo el resto:

Neither White nor his defense team ever claimed that White’s consumption of junk food had wrought psychological or physiological changes in White that caused him to act in way inconsistent with his “normal” behavior when he shot George Moscone and Harvey Milk. White’s defense was that he had been suffering from a long-standing and untreated depression that diminished his capacity to distinguish right from wrong, and thus he was not capable of the premeditation required to support a charge of first degree murder. Dr. Martin Blinder was called as a witness by the defense to testify that the conversion of the previously health-conscious White to a diet of Twinkies and other junk foods was evidence of his depression. This testimony was similar to offering evidence that the habitual wearing of torn and dirty clothes by someone who had previously always been a snappy dresser was a sign that that person was suffering from depression. Nobody who paid attention would claim that such testimony asserted that bad clothing had caused the defendant’s depression, but that is essentially what happened in White’s case. Junk food was used as evidence that White was depressed; White’s depression was used to establish grounds for a successful diminished capacity plea; and therefore White was judged incapable of the premeditation required for a murder conviction.

When the diminished capacity defense was successful and White was convicted of the lesser charge of voluntary manslaughter, an outraged media and public skipped the middlemen. White’s depression wasn’t mentioned; instead we were told he had claimed that “Twinkies made him do it.” (Dr. Blinder did suggest excessive sugar could have aggravated a chemical imbalance in White’s brain, but that comment was offered only as a parenthetical remark during Blinder’s testimony about White’s depression. It was not in any way a substantive part of White’s defense.)

Here are excerpts taken from a random sampling of post-trial news stories about the White murders. Note that all of them erroneously report that junk food was claimed as the cause of White’s depression rather than as an indicator of his depression:

• [White] got off with voluntary manslaughter. The defense had argued that the refined sugar in White’s junk food had made him depressed and mentally incapable of premeditated murder.
• His defense lawyer argued that White had been clinically depressed and that his judgment was impaired by a steady diet of junk food. That strategy was dubbed by the media “the Twinkie defense.”
• His attorneys mounted what came to be known as the “Twinkie defense,'’ in which he argued that he suffered from diminished capacity because of the excessive amounts of junk food he consumed.
• At his trial, White mounted the infamous “Twinkie defense,'’ with lawyers arguing that his habit of feasting on junk food had left him with diminished capacity for reason.