I’ve seen Autism used as the reason that some people commit a crime. It might be a factor but in some of these I just don’t see the connection. It has been used in everything from cyber crimes to violent murders.
Autism doesn’t mean you don’t have morals and it especially doesn’t mean that one can’t care about others. On the contrary, most Autism people care deeply about other people.
https://www.reddit.com/r/autism/comments/1hafe7s/i_despise_when_people_use_autism_as_an_excuse_for/
I don’t think that having autism is necessarily a defense and on its own certainly doesn’t justify an insanity defense.
Obviously, most autistic are not likely to commit a serious non victimless crime. There are some crimes were autistic people are over represented, but on average they are less likely to commit violent crimes.
The empathy issue is complicated though. From what I understand, autistic people have more emotional empathy but less cognitive empathy. More cognitive empathy is also not always a good thing. Caring about other people can also lead to doing heinous things in the name of supposed compassion to people who are seen as perpetrators. It can also lead to evil acts that are seen as compassionate, such as euthanasia.