The amicus brief, written by experts in the field of ASD, has just been posted to the court docket. Sam has been diagnosed with both ADHD and ASD which the brief argues greatly impacted his behavior leading up to and during the trial. As it points out, it also impacted the judge’s response to him (the brief cites plenty of negative comments made by Kaplan about Sam), and the jury’s since, as the experts pointed out, in a trial as complicated as this one, the jury would look to the judge for cues as to how they should interpret what was happening. And what was up with not getting his meds appropriately administered?! This is an important read. https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.ca2.9d455c17-4ee8-40a0-bafd-1eeeb19acafb/gov.uscourts.ca2.9d455c17-4ee8-40a0-bafd-1eeeb19acafb.41.0.pdf
Thank you for sharing, Maria.
I agree that the meds situation is pretty shocking. To be fair, it sounds like Kaplan was making some attempt to get the MDC to give Sam his meds, but not a serious one (“He surely does not look unfocused to me in the courtroom. But obviously I’m not professionally qualified”). And I think Kaplan should have been making a serious attempt – how can this be considered a fair trial when the defendant is suffering cognitive withdrawal symptoms as a result of the justice system withholding prescribed medication?
in a trial as complicated as this one, the jury would look to the judge for cues as to how they should interpret what was happening
I hadn’t thought of that before. And this is a really good point about judicial bias in general in this case, not only as it relates to autism. Especially since “By some counts, no fewer than three jurors have been fast asleep while the witnesses gave their testimony” (SBF’s trial has tinges of a “Jury Duty” parody — but it’s all too real - Blockworks …and speaking of negative comments by Kaplan, this article also observes, “Judge Lewis Kaplan has continuously chastised Bankman-Fried’s team with snide remarks in a mocking tone that many journalists didn’t even know was allowed, leading to giggles from the gallery”).