J6 insurrectionists unsuccessfully used autism in their legal defense.
The 25-year sentence Sam Bankman-Fried got Thursday for defrauding users of the collapsed cryptocurrency exchange FTX is evidence that the defendant’s past attempts to have his autism considered a mitigating factor during the judge’s sentencing decisions didn’t work. Multiple people had argued on Bankman-Fried’s behalf that his autism made him less culpable for his crimes or less deserving of a lengthy stay in prison.
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Reading these statements as an autistic person evoked in me conflicting thoughts: The plea for leniency because of Bankman-Fried’s neurotype follows a tired trope. We’ve seen such appeals before. An attorney for Jacob Chansley, the so-called QAnon Shaman, said of him and other January 6 defendants, “These are people with brain damage, they’re f------ retarded, they’re on the g--d---n spectrum.” Those narratives equate bad behavior with autistic traits and imply that autism makes people commit crimes.
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Yes, prison conditions are especially hard on autistic people. Those advocating on behalf of Bankman-Fried aren’t wrong to think so. All the same, Bankman-Fried’s attempt to use his neurodivergence as a means to escape the consequences of his actions are wrong.The criminal justice system consistently fails neurodivergent people, but Bankman-Fried is not in that number.
