"To rejoice in another's prosperity is to give content to your lot; to mitigate another's grief is to alleviate or dispel your own." -Tyron Edwards
We don't believe in victims; we believe in survivors.
We don't believe in excuses; we believe in explanations.
We don't believe punishment alleviates pain; we believe mitigation and mediation do.
Frustrated that juries were choosing life over death, prosecutors labeled mitigation as "the abuse excuse." The argument goes that not every abused child goes on to kill another person - this defendant made a conscious choice to kill and you shouldn't feel sorry for him because he had a tough life.
Mitigation is not about sympathy, it is about understanding. Assume that a young man from an upper middle class background is enrolled in college, has lots of friends, and no apparent problems. If he is arrested for murder, do we ask "what happened to him?" or "why would he ever do such a thing?" Why do these types of cases get so much media attention?
When we cross the train tracks and find a young man who's father is in prison, his mother physically abused him all throughout childhood, joined a gang after his mother is sent to prison, dropped out of school, and gets arrested when he's in the car during a drive-by, what do we say to ourselves when it's a blip on the evening news?
The nature - nurture debate has raged for decades, and we do not profess to know the answer. We do believe, however, that every person has a reason for their actions. While it may not be a reason that automatically gets them out of trouble, understanding their background and what let them to that fork in the road enables juries to make decisions based upon insight and understanding instead of fear and assumption. |
