Hello Miss Vicki:

[M. Diane]

a lawyer, eh...is that why you were reading death penalty briefs? please excuse how long it has taken me to answer your question about what exactly it is that I do in my Death Penalty Mitigation work, been terribly busy with the relocation to Tucson bidness and all that entails.

I go visit the client in prison (detention facility) and begin the process of building the trust necessary to discovering who they are. Just because I'm part of the legal team does not mean I or for that matter any legal team member is automatically trusted. Most folks (largely male) who end up accused of a capital crime are not overly trusting souls.

As I continue to visit and gain the confidence of the client I then begin to weave in visits with family, friends, enemies, employers (not a lot there often) and so on. The point of all this is to unearth mitigation circumstances as to why this person who has committed murder ought to be given life without parole rather than the death sentence.

The reason I turly enjoy this work is that it is soooooooo dark. Also I learn so very much about an entire segment of our society of which most of us never get access. The reality is crushingly different than the tabloids or even true crime fiction portays.

Anyway there you have it, well the brief version anyway. Thanks for asking.

Aren't we are grand gang of 212 member thus far. Does get a bit noisey in here some days, but then it would wouldn't it.

M. Diane

[vicki]

been terribly busy with the relocation to Tucson bidness and all that entails.


No worries--I completely understand the life-vortex created by moving. Heck, my last move was only 2 miles across town and movers did most of the work, but it was still so traumatic that I swore my next move would be to the cemetery.

Yes, I'm a lawyer by training and worked as a judicial staff attorney, so I reviewed death penalty petitions for judges for several years. It was not the ideal job for someone with depressive tendencies, but I muddled through somehow. After seeing how the process works up close and personal, I actually became a death penalty opponent.

Your work must be very interesting, and it's certainly needed. I think a big key to mitigation in these cases will be getting neurological science to the point where it can produce mitigation evidence that will be acceptable under the current court precedent, which is a very high standard indeed. Still, I think the science is moving in that direction faster than it ever has.


Also I learn so very much about an entire segment of our society of which most of us never get access.


So true. Although I'll have to say that one of my most frustrating cases involved a boy from a very stable and loving middle-class family who simply lost himself to drug and alcohol addiction. He just never had that hit-rock-bottom moment of clarity that seems to be the saving of other addicts. It was a very sad case.

I mainly wish these defendants had better representation at the trial level (which is not to say that some of them don't have good trial lawyers, but a lot of them don't). By the time the high-powered lawyers come in at the appellate level, it's incredibly difficult to have much of an effect. Still, good appellate representation is better than having mediocre representation all though the process.

[vicki]

MD--did you see this article (http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Scotus-Mentally-Ill.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin) in the NYT?