(Creating a throwaway account to respond to this post rather than use my regular HN account)
I see the comments about what the kid did being abhorrent and that autism should not excuse it. I understand where these commenters are coming from. But allow me to tell you what you're missing.
I'm the parent of an autistic pre-teen. He's "high functioning" because he can talk, read, write, do math and goes to a regular school. But I can totally see him doing something stupid and insensitive like this. The problem is there are several things he just doesn't understand no matter how many times you explain it to him. There are echoes of this problem in the article:
> He [Brandon] just doesn’t understand why he’s still in prison.
> Brandon recently started writing letters to the prison warden and to Judge Ruiz, asking to be let out. “Brandon, that’s just not going to work,” Fleury tells him. But he has to keep explaining it. These days they have the same conversations, over and over, round and round, and get nowhere: Brandon just doesn’t understand.
It's obvious to us that sending such hateful, hurtful messages is wrong. But some autistic brains simply do not understand this. Here are some things my kid does not understand no matter how many times we explain it to him:
* If someone doesn't want to include you (e.g. in their Minecraft server, or party), there is no point in crashing in uninvited.
* You don't say to someone every day that they stink (have BO).
* You can go to the bathroom when you're at your piano teacher's house.
* Just because one Chinese girl bullied you does not mean all people of Chinese origin are evil.
If you haven't experienced interactions with such an autistic person, you would not believe there exists anyone who doesn't get something so basic. Even if you've met several autistic people, it's possible you haven't met someone with this specific blindspot.
So yes, if I were the judge in Brandon's case, I'd be more lenient.