“Mitigation investigation and the presentation of the evidence it yields has been an integral part of capital defense work for decades, and it has become increasingly essential in criminal defense advocacy more widely. In the last fifty years since the United States Supreme Court ushered in the modern death penalty, the role of mitigation has evolved both in terms of the scope of evidence that is considered potentially mitigating and the cases in which courts view it as relevant. A central feature of this evolution has been the passage of professional standards of care to guide the development and presentation of mitigation evidence in these high stakes cases.”
“Early concepts of what evidence could mitigate a potential sentence of death often focused on the historical trauma, damage, or dysfunction experienced by a person charged with a death-eligible crime. Over the last several decades, however, this blinkered conception has blossomed into a holistic approach that requires defense teams to investigate and develop the full spectrum of personhood and present decision-makers with a multidimensional
biography of the accused.”
“Beyond the expanded scope of topics considered as mitigation in death penalty cases, mitigation’s evidentiary relevance has also evolved in other types of criminal cases.”