Brief Report: Autism in the Courtroom: Experiences of Legal Professionals and the Autism Community

The term ‘autistic person’ is the preferred language of many adults on the spectrum (see Kenny et al. 2016). In this article, we use this term as well as person-first language (e.g., person with autism) to respect the diversity of views on this issue amongst the autism community.

A term that includes victims, but not suspects/defendants.

In England and Wales, criminal courts comprise Magistrates’ Courts, Crown Courts and Youth Courts. Magistrates’ Courts tend to involve ‘summary offences’ (e.g., motoring offences, minor criminal damage) and cases are presided over by district judges (who are appointed from the ranks of barristers and solicitors) or lay magistrates (members of the community who apply to sit as magistrates); there is no jury. The most serious cases (e.g., murder, rape) are handled by Crown Courts, and comprise a jury (that determines the verdict—guilty or not guilty) and a judge (who oversees the trial and determines the sentence in the case of a guilty plea or a guilty verdict). Youth courts are a type of Magistrates’ Court (with magistrates or a district judge; no jury) for defendants who are 10–17 years of age (inclusive). They deal with all offences unless the court feels the matter is so serious it needs to be referred to the Crown Court. The use of the terms judges, barristers and solicitors in this manuscript refers to specific legal roles in England and Wales. In this jurisdiction, judges preside over court proceedings, either on their own or as part of a panel; barristers are types of lawyers who generally practise as advocates in higher courts (e.g., Crown Court, High Court, Court of Appeal); and solicitors (akin to attorneys) are lawyers who conduct legal proceedings and may also conduct advocacy in higher court subject to obtaining relevant qualifications.

The term ‘judge’ is used in this paper to encompass all those who adjudicate (that is, reach a verdict in a contested case and sentence where the defendant is found guilty or pleads guilty) in criminal cases. This is despite the sample comprising District Judges and Magistrates (who may include Lay Magistrates who, formally, are not judges).

For ease of interpretation, we report the results of all five-point scales condensed into three points (e.g., ‘challenging’; ‘neutral’; ‘not challenging’) throughout the Results section, as the overall patterns remained the same.

Whilst community respondents were also asked about the Witness Intermediary Scheme, it was not possible to analyse this data as there appeared to be confusion regarding the term; respondents interpreted this quite broadly, as a third party that acts as a mediator between people, rather than a discrete role within the justice system.

Note that these data are presented to provide an insight into the experiences (in terms of types of crime and whether the individual was a victim, witness or suspect/defendant) of the legal professionals who took part in this survey; it is not intended that these indicate prevalence regarding autism and engagement with the CJS.