Questioning if I understand the consequences of my actions

Your concerns are not unreasonable. Mens Rea is built into a lot of our laws including the definition of many sexual crimes (to varying degrees). So in theory the 'innocent mind' defence for an autistic person who's made a social gaff should be valid in many legal situations. But in practice police men and lawyers often don't understand the ways autism effects autistic people perception of the world and they may not appreciate the importance of the mens rea in the offence.

I not recommending this particular solicitor (although they are accredited by NAS) but they have a number of case studies in their website where they have defenced autistic people accused of sex crimes often because of a social misunderstanding. This clearly is a problem some autistic people struggle with. (case 1, case 2) Another example might be the Bowerman v B & Q PLC [2005] (westlaw WL 7863629) case. Where an employment tribunal ruled that defining 'unintentional sexual harassment' as gross misconduct amounted to discrimination against an autistic man.

I think there is a desire to try and pretend this isn't an issue. One phrase that gets wheeled out on a regular basis is 'autism mustn't be used as an excuse.' Of course the people saying this are usually very keen for autism to be an excuse for the behaviour of children, an autistic student kicking their teachers shins during a melt down for example. But for some reason they believe that the neurology of autistic people suddenly morphs at the age of 18 and autism is no longer a factor in say an autistic person creeping out a stranger by flirting with them in a bar.

There are autistic people who don't have issues around this (I'm thinking largely the disproportionately large fraction of autistic people who consider themselves asexual) who would just like this issue to go away. There are those who don't want their autism associated with drama over accusations (even if unfair accusations) of sexual misconduct. There are others who believe its not the right time to draw attention to this issue lest it hurt the wider cause of improving autistic rights. I for one disagree. There is a real need to be honest about how confusion around social communication can make autistic people vulnerable to unfair and occasionally even malicious accusations of sexual misconduct. The topic needs to be brought into the public discourse around autism.

Thank you, that's really helpful. Since diagnosis I have been re-evaluating my life and any possible misunderstandings or perseverating about what could have been misunderstandings. So this helps provide context and structure for those reflections.

Thank you, that's really helpful. Since diagnosis I have been re-evaluating my life and any possible misunderstandings or perseverating about what could have been misunderstandings. So this helps provide context and structure for those reflections.

That makes more sense. I don't think insanity defence is the right word to describe the symptoms of ASD that I am experiencing, it's more of a question of culpability as you explained.

I am sorry that I didn't describe it correctly, I am just worried that I don't understand the consequences of my actions, because I misinterpreted some social cues, but it's not to the point of legal insanity.

You don't have to be psychotic to be legally insane, there are situations where neurogenative and neurodevelopental disorders are so severe that it can effect how you know right from wrong.

I think it's important to distinguish competence from culpability. In current legal theory competence is more or less binary. You either are or aren't. But culpability is more of a sliding scale and culpability can be defined quite different than competency when it comes to criminal law.

Competence, or more correctly capacity, under the mental capacity act is defined as the ability to understand the information relevant to the decision, to retain that information, to use or weigh that information as part of the process of making the decision, and to communicate his decision (whether by talking, using sign language or any other means).

But for an autistic person its not the inability to understand the information that the problem. Its the inability to acquire it. Neurotypicals brains, their subconscious minds, are constantly feeding them information about others likely mental state through observations of facial expressions and body language they're not even aware they're making or at least couldn't articulate into words if you asked them.

So an autistic man goes upto a girl in a bar and tries to impress her with some jokes. She gives him her best 'go away' face but he's not seeing it. So she turns to talk to her friend but he just thinks she doesn't want her friend to feel left out so he starts talking to her too. And because he doesn't make eye contact his eyes dart around as he talks to her but she's wearing a low cut top with a sparkly necklace and as he gets more lost in his words and the fascinating conversation they're both rolling their eyes at he's becoming less and less aware that he keeps glancing at the necklace more and more. Before he knows it they're asking security to throw him out.

What did he lack? Understanding or information? He was unaware of her facial expressions, of the subtext in her body language and words, unaware of his own body language and how it would be interpreted. 

Criminal culpability is different. Most crimes have a mens rea element. Some intentional component to them. Beyond that there is the so called 'insanity defence' which is actually very narrow. One has to claim one was so mentally effected that one didn't know right from wrong or that one was completely detached from reality (eg hallucinating or convinced of an absurdity)

Autism is more usually relevant in terms of the mens rea. For example suppose some one joked that they were giving away their car but an autistic person took them literally because of their autism. So they drive away with his car The mens rea for theft is generally "dishonesty and an intention to permanently deprive the other of it." Now if the autistic person genuinely believed the man was giving him the car because of a joke there is no dishonesty. Yes a number of road offences probably still apply regarding car insurance etc but not theft.

Also generally the prosecution must establish mens rea beyond reasonable doubt. It's generally not enough for them to say your autism probably didn't cause you not to meet the mens rea component of the crime, they have to prove it beyond reasonable doubt. With insanity pleas its almost the other way round. Its the defence that really has to build up a body of evidence to prove insanity and as we've seen the nature of the way autism effects peoples thinking doesn't lend itself to the legal definition of the insanity defence.

#notlegaladvice

I agree. I might be incompetent and did something wrong that I did not understand, and once I gain my competency, I try my best to be responsible for my actions.

Diagnosis can stir up things and you might see your past actions or events differently, not using autism as excuse for these things, but accepting that we may have lacked understanding or awareness or been driven by things we didn't learn control.  Important to accept what has happened, and in your mind apologise for it, it can settle things down and might help you to a better place.