Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World

Doug Passon: Breaking Down Barriers, How Understanding Autism Changes Legal Outcomes

• Tony Mantor

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Doug Passon shares his journey as a criminal defense lawyer and filmmaker advocating for autistic individuals in the legal system, drawing from both his professional experience and personal connection as a parent of an autistic son.

• Criminal defense lawyer who uses documentary filmmaking to humanize clients at sentencing
• Pioneered the use of video in sentencing mitigation, recognized by Wall Street Journal
• Self-described as both lawyer and filmmaker who shows humanity behind the case file
• Explains how many autistic defendants lack proper diagnosis before entering legal system 
• Describes the "Three Pillars" leading to legal trouble: isolation, hyperfocus, and poor executive functioning
• Challenges misconceptions about "high-functioning" autism masking genuine impairments
• Emphasizes perspective-taking difficulties ("mind blindness") common in autism
• Reports near-zero recidivism rate among autistic defendants who receive proper support
• Advocates for better education among legal professionals about autism
• Warns parents about online vulnerabilities that can lead autistic children into legal trouble

If you know anyone that would like to tell us their story, send them to TonyMantor.com and they can give us their information so one day they may be a guest on our show.


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intro/outro music bed written by T. Wild
Why Not Me the World music published by Mantor Music (BMI)

Speaker 1:

Welcome to why Not Me? The World Podcast, hosted by Tony Mantor, broadcasting from Music City, usa, nashville, tennessee. Join us as our guests tell us their stories. Some will make you laugh, some will make you cry. Their stories Some will make you laugh, some will make you cry. Real life people who will inspire and show that you are not alone in this world. Hopefully, you gain more awareness, acceptance and a better understanding for autism around the world. Hi, I'm Tony Minotaur. Welcome to why Not Me? The World Humanity Over Handcuffs the Silent Crisis special event. Joining us today is Doug Passon. He is a seasoned criminal defense lawyer with over 30 years of experience. He's an award-winning documentary filmmaker, recognized by the Wall Street Journal as a pioneer in the use of video in sentencing mitigation. He is a gifted storyteller and has joined us today to tell his story of advocating for autism in the legal system. Thanks for coming on. If you would give us a little information about yourself.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so I'm a criminal defense lawyer and I have been for almost 30 years, and I'm also a filmmaker. So my whole life was one of two tracks lawyer or filmmaker as long as I can remember. And when college was over, I had to pick a path and I chose lawyer. It made more sense. I think my folks were worried I'd be sleeping on their couch until I was 35 if I was a starving artist. But I was always passionate about the law and always passionate about criminal defense. I wanted to be a public defender, passionate about justice issues. I chose that path, but I was always making films and immersing myself in story and reading all the books, taking classes. Eventually those two things intersected and I figured out very fast.

Speaker 2:

The system was so dehumanizing and we're not even at the autism piece. This is just the criminal justice system. When you get charged with a crime, you're reduced to a stack of paper and a file and you're going to be defined by the worst mistake you ever made and that's as much as you are and will ever be and you're a monster and we need to punish you to the fullest extent of the law. And blah, blah, blah. And I just saw that over and over again, and my job especially, given that most people who find themselves indicted, charged with a crime, they're going to end up at sentencing. That's the odds. You know. The odds are. You know, even in I work mostly in the federal system 96, 7, 8% of those people are pleading guilty. They're not even having a trial. So you know they're getting sentenced. And then the small percentage of people that go to trial they don't always win.

Speaker 2:

I found myself trying to be really just being a storyteller and showing the humanity of my clients, my clients. Yes, they made a mistake, yes, there's going to be a consequence, but the question is, what's a fair consequence? And the only way you can measure that it's not by the crime, it's by you've got to judge the person as much as you're going to be judging the crime, and that's the only way you can judge what is a fair consequence. So what is your life story? And that's my thing. I'm a storyteller and I need to make sure that the people that are making these life and death decisions understand the human being behind the crime. So I started making movies and cases.

Speaker 1:

Wow, that's pretty interesting. When did you start doing the filming?

Speaker 2:

2005 was actually my first video and I figured out it was a really powerful way to advocate In the federal system. A lot of times the first time the judge ever lays eyes on a client is at sentencing, because they've gone through magistrate and other lower court judges to plead guilty and these ministerial things. And now all of a sudden, the whole time they've just been, like I said, stack of paper and a file. So you can get this video. It's a short documentary about the case or the client, explaining who they are, why they did what they did, why they're not going to do it again, whatever the case may be. And then the judge has that in advance of sentencing so he or she has actually had an opportunity to essentially meet the client, sit with the client, experience the client in their own world.

Speaker 2:

So eventually I left the traditional legal practice to go focus on making those movies, and that's what I do for lawyers all over the country and I help them build the story. You don't get to the movie until you know what the story is that you're trying to tell and then we make these movies. When I left, that was 10 years ago and I just envisioned myself being the movie guy. But guess what happened?

Speaker 1:

What happened With what you're telling me? I'm sure it must be pretty good. I met Mark Mahoney. Actually, that's great. He's actually been on the podcast.

Speaker 2:

He is the lead autism criminal defense lawyer in the world. I would venture to say he understood that the huge challenge in autism cases was to get people to understand the truth about our clients, because most people don't know what it is. They don't know why it matters. He understood that these sentencing videos would be a really powerful tool in autism cases. So I started working on these cases with him and eventually I got pulled back into the traditional legal practice and I handle these cases now. Him and eventually I got pulled back in to the traditional legal practice and I handle these cases now like Mark does, and I'm always pulling Mark up going I need this, I need that, and he's so generous. So now I'm a lawyer, I'm a filmmaker and now I'm representing these clients as well in various stages of the proceeding.

Speaker 1:

That's so great. What led you to doing this?

Speaker 2:

I have a personal connection to this because I have a son who's on the autism spectrum. I think I got the issues more than most and here's the big problem there are very few lawyers who really understand that. They can even recognize the issue when they have a case, let alone understand what to do with it, how to develop it, how to present it and why it's mitigating, why it matters to the story. I'm so grateful to come on your podcast because I'm really on a mission to educate lawyers first and foremost. You don't have to know everything about autism, it's okay. Just know enough to see it, to see the signs, and then dig around and make sure you've developed this part of it, because we miss it all the time.

Speaker 2:

What are the CDC statistics? Right now, I think it's one in 36. Let's extrapolate the numbers because I think I've handled about a thousand cases in my 30 years, which means how many of those clients were on the spectrum and I knew nothing about it for the first 20 years of my practice, because we as a society still know relatively little about it. So how many of those did I miss and how much detriment? You know how much damage resulted because I didn't know what I didn't know, and it's not a criticism of lawyers. You can't be expected to know everything, but we have to start opening our eyes to this issue. It's so crucial yes, absolutely.

Speaker 1:

I did talk with Mark. He brought up the fact that he thought that some lawyers unfortunately just did not want outside help and that sometimes could hurt the case. How do we get past that? Just like you said, we need lawyers out there that understand the situation of the autistic people. There's no shame in asking for help, especially when your client may need it.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, that that's the $64,000 question, because we're a strange breed. I don't know if it's the personality that's drawn to the legal practice. It's highly competitive. We've gone through years of school. Most of us have practiced for decades. We like to think we just know everything. It's the difference between a growth mindset and a fixed mindset.

Speaker 2:

It's really interesting because when you talk about some of the hallmarks of autism, what is one of the major problems or obstacles? Rigid thinking. I would love to do a cross-sectional study of lawyers because I have a feeling that many of us are probably on the spectrum. Especially the older lawyers have been doing this their whole career. This is how I do it. I know what I'm doing. I don't need you to tell me and oh, that probably doesn't matter anyway, because they don't know what they don't know and I don't know how you combat that other than educate, which is what you're doing again, which is why I'm so grateful to be here and just hoping that a lawyer, no matter how far you've gone in practice, you still know that you always have something to learn. That's just called life.

Speaker 1:

Exactly. Another thing Mark brought up a lot of autistic people can speak with you, speak with anyone, like a Rhodes Scholar, yet they are still autistic. Sometimes they lack the process of that critical thinking which is what you brought up earlier where they put themselves in a situation not fully understanding. They're getting themselves in a situation how do you help them through this? They're thrown into the legal system, which is very scary. It's the big unknown to them. What's the first step that you offer or take to help them?

Speaker 2:

There's a lot to unpack, If I can speak to how I support the family. Here's the interesting thing, I think. More often than not, clients are coming to me and they're not diagnosed. They don't know. They've had these problems, they've struggled their whole life and they've always just thought I'm weird, there's something wrong with me, I'm whatever, I'm this, I'm that, and it's a horrible, lonely way to go through life. And the sad irony is this tragic occurrence of finding themselves ensnared in the criminal justice system is the first time they truly begin to understand what their struggles really are and that there's a real diagnosis, and I call it the rush of insight.

Speaker 1:

Okay, that's definitely interesting. Can you expand on that?

Speaker 2:

I'm a filmmaker, a storyteller, and the really good stories always have that big reveal right, you didn't see it coming, but the seeds were always there, they were planted along the way, and I always use Empire Strikes Back as my go-to example, which is Luke, I'm your father. I didn't see that one coming, but then you go back and all the clues made total sense, and then your whole story comes into focus, and that's what happens when you get the autism diagnosis. The level of support is to say look, I know this is horrible and we're're gonna do our very best to navigate this, to run this gauntlet, and I'm gonna be by your side through the whole thing. Look, here's the bright side. Now you know, and now you can start to get the right help, the right counseling, the right tools to navigate not only this stress in your life but your life in general, because for most people on the spectrum, life is unmanageable, even if they're not involved in some kind of criminal activity, and so there is a sense of relief and hope that the future can be better, once they've figured out what's wrong, have a path forward to fix it.

Speaker 2:

The bigger challenge is what you said at the beginning of this question, which is the idea of people thinking well, if they have a high intellect and they can carry on these really high-level conversations, then whatever you're saying is not relevant. Of course they knew what they were doing was wrong. How could they not have? They graduated high school, they drive a car, they've held a job, they've gone to college, whatever it is. Nothing could be further from the truth. And that is our monumental hurdle and I'm sure Mark talked about that too is breaking through that wall of complete misunderstanding. And you know in the criminal justice and people are inherently skeptical about defense lawyers to begin with that we're just trying to get our clients off and lie and cheat and sell snake oil. So when it to autism, a lot of prosecutors call it the excuse du jour. Oh, this doesn't really make a difference. But so what he has it, he's high functioning and so that means his autism is mild. I don't think your listeners can see these air quotes that I'm putting up, but I hate those terms.

Speaker 1:

Can you expand on those terms so the listeners can get a better understanding of what you're trying to put across?

Speaker 2:

They don't tell the truth about the true struggles of an autistic person. Yes, they can have a decent IQ, maybe even a high IQ, but when you look at their emotional intelligence, their social intelligence, their receptive language skills, if you give some of these folks a test called the Vineland assessment, which is social, adaptive language and adaptive skill set and all these things, they might come out as an 8, 9, 10, 11, 12-year-old child on these tests. When I try to explain to the decision makers why this is real, a couple of things I fall back on and I will say I don't want to create the impression that people on the spectrum are completely broken, deficient in any way. Yes, it is a disability, but any disability can be overcome. But I do think that it's a superpower and kryptonite all rolled into one. It's that kryptonite aspect that we need to shine the light on and say, ok, how is this so debilitating? Kryptonite kills superman, right? How can autism be so debilitating that it could cause you to commit a crime like oh, I don't know downloading child porn, meeting a 12 year old girl for a sexual encounter in a parking lot? Now, your listeners, their skin's gonna crawl. But these are the kinds of things a lot of people on the spectrum find themselves in trouble for and and. Then there are your basic fraud cases. How do they get in trouble for committing white collar crimes, not to mention, like terrorism, related offenses? Do you know how many 1-6 defendants are probably on the autism spectrum?

Speaker 2:

I have a client right now who destroyed allegedly some energy facilities. Why? Because he's passionate about climate change. He knows everything there is to know about global weather patterns and history of climate change, the players, the coal industry, the fuel industry, the way this pipeline works, everything, and he's brilliant. Then he goes out and does something allegedly as dumb as shooting a gun in the middle of the night Nobody's hurt but blowing some holes in a transmitter to shut down this little rinky-dink power station in the middle of nowhere. And the question is how could someone so smart do something so dumb? What were they thinking? And the answer is they weren't thinking. Because that's what autism is. It's really an impairment of the way that your brain processes information. I know I'm talking a lot, so feel free to shut me down or interrupt or whatever, but the way I make sense of this in my own mind is there's a few pillars that lead to trouble, big trouble.

Speaker 1:

No, this is great information, not a problem at all. So what are some of these things that lead to these issues that you was just referring to?

Speaker 2:

First is isolation. This part always chokes me up because I think of my own son. Thank God he's never been in trouble a day in his life. Why? Because, probably since he was four or five years old, he had a diagnosis and he had parents who understood this stuff and had access to therapy and resources and have understood what potential pitfalls and dangers are. I do this work. How many times have I gone into my son's bedroom? Hey, just to make sure, kiddo, it's not okay to do X, y, z, right. And he's like yeah, dad, thanks.

Speaker 2:

This is the story I have a hard time telling. With regard to isolation, I see pictures of my son when he's a young boy two, three, four years old and he has this beautiful smile, so happy. Now I look at these pictures and he won't smile for a picture, he just won't. Emotional affect issues and things with autism. And I was looking at how much emotion and how effervescent and beautiful this boy was and I asked my wife and she has a great background in this, she's a speech language pathologist and she worked with autistic kids in the school district I said Rach, do you think it's possible that autism is like comes later in life, like it's an onset that progressive. Look at his emotional affect here and look at here and she said no, I think more likely than not that life has just beaten the smile out of our son.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, unfortunately that happens with a lot of kids. It's just life in today's world. I think he was bullied with very little friends.

Speaker 2:

Bullied Always felt bad about himself. Teachers didn't understand him, principals didn't understand him. So I'm sorry, I'm getting emotional.

Speaker 1:

That's quite all right. It's your son. There's no reason to not feel that way. What?

Speaker 2:

happens to these kids? They get isolated. They don't have the social interaction to where they can learn the things that neurotypicals learn about. This is the way you're supposed to interact in a sexual situation, or this is social reciprocity, whatever. So what do they do? They don't learn, but where do they go? You know where they go. They go online Because it's so much easier to communicate with a person when you're not face-to-face and all that social stuff and online is just a cesspool of epic proportion that there's nothing but trouble there.

Speaker 2:

You're vulnerable in any number of ways, but it's also this idea. So now you're online, but you have this issue. This is the second pillar. What is it? Hyperfocus, areas of high interest, people on the spectrum I think it's the way they manage anxiety just become so interested in one thing and always into that thing. Great. Online you can go as deep and as wide as you want to go on any topic, and you may hope that it's World War II airplanes, but a lot of times it may be QAnon or some crazy shit that they just keep going and going and going and going.

Speaker 2:

The last pillar is the executive functioning component. So now you've got all this information and ideas in your head and you don't know what to do with it. And you come up with a dumb idea like shooting up an energy facility or going to meet this girl or whatever it is, and you have this rigid thinking which is, once you get this idea, it's very hard to get out of it. You have executive functioning, which means you can't plan and predict consequences. What happens three steps down the road if I do this thing and I end up in jail for this thing, or my family ends up devastated and bankrupt from this thing, or some child God forbid ends up getting traumatized from this thing.

Speaker 2:

That's not the way the autistic brain works and that's how they find themselves in this terrible trouble. And guess what? That's why the suicide rate for autistic people is off the charts. Loneliness, rigid thinking this is a solution to a problem I can't think of a better one and then total lack of. How is this going to affect the rest of my life, my family's life, everybody? And it's those three pillars, I think, explains that really.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that makes total sense. And you're correct, suicide is the second leading cause of death among autistic people around the world. I've spoken with many autistic people. They definitely do not get social cues. I spoke with one person and she was a musician. She had several people talking to her. One guy was flirting with her and then her friend come up to her and said you knew he was flirting with you, right? And she didn't have a clue. So how do we get the prosecutors to understand? Most autistic people do not understand those social cues, like neurotypical people do. They need to understand and have a little more empathy to help these people out, to get to a better solution for everyone. To get to a better solution for everyone.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, and that is what I think we would call the idea of mind blindness. It's this idea of perspective taking. It's so central to what we do because, again, the default is, of course, you knew how this person would feel about what you did. Let's take the child sexual abuse material. Right, it's a picture and it's a picture of a child being abused in unimaginable ways and the neurotypical goes, looks at that picture and is instantaneously repulsed. Because we have perspective taking, we can basically go into the mind of that child or even that abuser and understand how terrible that situation is. Autistic brain can't do that. Much of what we do is education, and there's really two ways you can educate somebody. You can educate them with the science and the facts, the scholarly articles, the erudite speeches and everything else. But me, I'm a storyteller and I think the more you can just tell stories that bring this home better. Here's a simple one I mentioned.

Speaker 2:

I have a son on the spectrum. He has a little brother who's not on the spectrum and you know how a little brother looks up to big brother. There's a four-year difference and one time little brother, both into gaming and little brother, had this really cool game and he wanted to show his older brother. He was so excited he was sure that his older brother would think that's cool. The older brother looked at him blankly and said I really don't care and walked away. The neurotypical brain looks at that and goes what a jerk. That was the meanest thing ever. How could he do that to his little brother? But guess what? The truth is? He wasn't interested and he just was being honest, telling him the truth, which we're always telling people on the autism spectrum, who are supposed to be rule followers. We're always telling them to tell the truth. So in his mind, he probably did a very good thing by telling his brother I'm not interested. But how do you think his little brother felt it interested? But how do you think his little brother felt it was like he might as well just punched him right in the gut and he didn't know any better. But guess what? All I had to do is sit down with him and have the conversation and help him understand.

Speaker 2:

They're not irrevocably broken. They're not gonna be dangerous. They're not dangerous people. They're not people with malintent. They just don't intuit the way we do. But once they learn the rules of social interaction, they can manage that just fine. That's why Mahoney will tell you. They just don't intuit the way we do. But once they learn the rules of social interaction, they can manage that just fine. That's why Mahoney will tell you because there's no formal studies about this, but he keeps anecdotal statistics on all of his cases about what is the recidivism rate. In other words, once an autistic person realizes how badly they deviated from the rules and norms of society, what are the chances they're going to do it again? And the answer is almost zero. There's literally almost zero recidivism rate among the autistic population. They are the most highly treatable offenders in the criminal justice system.

Speaker 1:

Yes, I've spoken with several judges about this topic. They say the same thing. I spoke with one that he's starting a huge facility down in Miami. He retired from the bench and is starting this huge facility I think 218 beds and it's going to just help everybody so that they don't wind up back in front of the judges again.

Speaker 2:

Wow For autism.

Speaker 1:

I believe it covers anyone that needs help. Not 100% sure. The one thing I do know he says that by doing this it will keep people from showing up in front of the judges for a second or third or fourth time. It also contributes to saving hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxpayers' money being in the legal system. So if they can get it in Miami, we should be able to find a way to make this happen all across the country.

Speaker 2:

Yes, it's a slow slog, but I love to hear the stories about these judges. After 30 years, I'm still an optimist about human beings and the human spirit and I think fundamentally, judges are trying to do the right thing. It's incumbent upon us to give them the information they need to make the right decision. So that goes back to the lawyers aren't equipped to tell these stories they don't know. You hear those stories. They're scattered all over, and then there are some prosecutors who get this. You may be offered diversion or better plea agreement. And are some prosecutors who get this? You maybe offer diversion or better plea agreement. And there are judges who get this. And then there are some who just don't get it or don't care.

Speaker 2:

There's legislation that's creeping in just in little dribs and drabs. I love Malcolm Gladwell. He talks about the tipping point. We are nowhere near the tipping point. I feel like we're on the very, very front end of building awareness and making widespread, lasting systemic change. But you have to keep pointing to those little small victories, just for the simple fact that it validates. We're not just blowing smoke here as defense lawyers. This is real. What we're telling you is real. You don't have to take our word for it. Look at these judges, look at this legislation.

Speaker 2:

Whatever, I'd like to see changes to the federal sentencing guidelines. I've reached out to some of these groups and I hope that we can spearhead that. I know there's been attempts to make changes to federal legislation, but I think it's got to be one step at a time, one state at a time, one jurisdiction at a time, one judge at a time and eventually there will be a tipping point. And here's the sad truth. I don't know if it's going to be 10 years from now or 20 years from now I hope it's not 30 years from now but we're going to look back at the way we treated people on the spectrum who found themselves in trouble and we're going to be horrified and ashamed about it that we didn't understand this better and we didn't understand it quicker.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely Interestingly, the first term autism was introduced in 1911 and associated with schizophrenia. Then, in 1943, it was diagnosed in children. The way that we looked at it and treated it was not always the best. So in the last 25 or 30 years it has gotten better, but we still have a long ways to go. We really do so. In closing, we've talked about several things here, which is very important. What would you like to tell the listener that you think is very important that they hear regarding to what you do and what needs to be done in the future?

Speaker 2:

There's so much. We've talked about this from the perspective of someone who's in trouble. I think the most important thing is part of the perspective of someone who's not in trouble. I'm a parent of an autistic child and I know the horrors that await them if they aren't given proper resources, if they aren't properly supervised, if they're left to their own devices to be online 24-7. Parents don't understand how vulnerable their children are, and not just to being in trouble running a fall of the law, but to being victimized online too.

Speaker 2:

My son went to an autism school, a high school that was created by a woman who there were no good schools for her son son, so she made an amazing school and I gave a talk to the parents, just so you know these are the danger zones. Make sure you understand and you're on top of this. God forbid this happens to your kid. It's going to devastate you. You've talked to the parents who have kids who have been in this system. I cannot imagine the pain and trauma that they go through every second of the day. So I gave this talk and it was a litany of like worst case scenarios and I think people were interested by it and and they were grateful for it. But I even had one parent come to me go so interesting, but that would never happen to my timmy.

Speaker 2:

And guess what? A month later, the f FBI was knocking at Timmy's door because Timmy posted something online about a pipe bomb. Now Timmy was actually literally a rocket scientist, brilliant kid, but he built model rockets and he would call the engines. They'd call them pipe bombs. Guess what? When the FBI hears you talking about explosive devices on Reddit or wherever it is, you're getting a knock at the door and that's the last thing in the world that you want. I just think the most important thing is I don't know if parents understand how vulnerable their kids on the spectrum are and, by the way, a lot of parents they have kids. They're struggling. They may have gotten the school psychologist to say I think they're just ADD, they may be on the spectrum, but you don't want that diagnosis, it's just going to stigmatize them and they'll still get services. No, you get the diagnosis so you can understand exactly what your child needs and set about giving it to them, and that is the very best way to head tragedy off at the pass.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, absolutely Wow. This has been great. Great conversation, great information. I really appreciate you taking the time to come on and talk with us about this. All right, this has been great. I so appreciate you. It's been my pleasure. Thanks again. Thanks for taking the time out of your busy schedule to listen to our show today. We hope that you enjoyed it as much as we enjoyed bringing it to you. If you know anyone that would like to tell us their story, send them to TonyMantorcom Contact then they can give us their information so one day they may be a guest on our show. One more thing we ask tell everyone everywhere about why not me, the world, the conversations we're having and the inspiration our guests give to everyone everywhere that you are not alone in this world.