ABSTRACT

Previous research has investigated the effects of providing general information about autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in legal contexts; however, the impact of idiosyncratic information about a defendant’s ASD on juror decision-making has not been examined. Therefore, the current study attempted to determine if there were differences in juror decision-making when (1) a defendant was explicitly diagnosed with ASD and (2) the specific type of information provided about the defendant’s ASD was varied in terms of severity and accompanying impairments. Participants (N = 422) read a case vignette and subsequently provided a verdict decision as well as opinions about the defendant’s responsibility for the crime and considerations of the defendant’s mental health in sentencing as proxy measures of juror leniency. Findings suggest that the explicit presence of an ASD diagnosis acts as a mitigating factor and results in the provision of fewer guilty verdicts. Further, jurors take the severity of ASD into account more than the type of impairment accompanying the disorder such that an increase in severity resulted in fewer guilty verdicts. Additionally, jurors appear to consider social impairments on par with intellectual impairments for adult defendants who present with ASD. Implications and future directions are discussed.

摘要

先前的研究调查了在法律背景下提供有关自闭症谱系障碍 (ASD) 的一般信息的影响；然而，有关被告 ASD 的特殊信息对陪审员决策的影响尚未得到检验。因此，当前的研究试图确定在以下情况下陪审员的决策是否存在差异：(1) 被告被明确诊断为 ASD，以及 (2) 提供的有关被告 ASD 的具体信息类型在严重程度和伴随情况方面有所不同减值。参与者（N = 422) 阅读了案件小插曲，随后提供了判决书以及对被告人犯罪责任的意见，以及量刑时对被告人心理健康的考虑，作为陪审员从宽处理的代理措施。调查结果表明，明确存在 ASD 诊断可作为减轻处罚的因素，并导致提供更少的有罪判决。此外，陪审员更多地考虑 ASD 的严重程度，而不是伴随障碍的损伤类型，因此严重程度的增加导致有罪判决的减少。此外，对于患有 ASD 的成年被告，陪审员似乎将社交障碍与智力障碍同等看待。讨论了影响和未来的方向。