Martin Blinder

Martin Blinder, M.D. is a forensic psychiatrist and the author of Psychiatry in the Everyday Practice of Law. Blinder is noted for his testimony in the 1979 trial of Dan White. In that trial, 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 such as Twinkies and Coca-Cola. An incidental remark by Blinder that the sugar might have worsened such a depression was widely misreported as a claim that the sugar had caused the depression, giving rise to the urban legend of the Twinkie defense.