On November 6, 2019, funded by a grant from Vital Strategies, NACDL hosted Defending Drug Overdose Homicides in Pennsylvania. This day-long program featured local and national speakers sharing insights and understandings regarding the complexities of drug overdose homicide prosecutions.

Comments to the U.S. Sentencing Commission regarding proposed amendments to the sentencing guidelines.

Willie Herring’s case cried out for mitigation. The cry went unanswered. The 5-4 decision from the Ohio Supreme Court in Herring’s case does not break new ground. It does, however, provide important reminders about the duty of capital defense attorneys to ensure that a comprehensive mitigation investigation is conducted in every case.

NACDL lists experts referred by its members, and an expert was in your search.

Over time, advocates in the capital defense arena have figured out which strategies work and which do not work. Defense lawyers in noncapital cases can learn from the strategies developed during several decades of capital representation. They can incorporate these strategies into sentencing advocacy for clients charged with drug offenses, noncapital murder, or any other crime. In noncapital cases, the offender is more likely someday to be released and returned to society. This requires more focus on development and resources for the offender that will facilitate a smooth re-entry.

In June 2012, the U.S. Supreme Court held in Miller v. Alabama that the practice of sentencing children to mandatory life without parole violates the constitutional prohibition against cruel and unusual punishments. In doing so, it also provided attorneys representing people facing life without parole for crimes that occurred when they were under 18 with new opportunities and obligations to present a universe of mitigating evidence that would counsel in favor of imposing some other lesser sentence. 

The social and behavioral sciences — and now the U.S. Supreme Court — have recognized that “kids are different.” Traditional scientific research demonstrates that adolescence is a transitional period of life in which cognitive abilities, emotions, judgment, impulse control, and identity are all still developing. Teenagers by their very nature are less mature and less able to assess risk, make good decisions, and control anger.¹  

The 2012 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Miller v. Alabama issued an invitation for the defense bar to create a fairer and more individualized sentencing landscape in juvenile cases with a potential sentence of life without parole (JLWOP). JLWOP cases now are arguably the constitutional equivalent of death penalty cases, and thus the principles of capital mitigation investigations should apply. The defense team’s investigation must include an exhaustive examination of the client, his life, medical and mental health, social connections, and environment.

Comprehensive mitigation investigations play a critical role in the new era of sentencing young people in the adult justice system. The discussion here focuses on the resentencing of adults who were mandatorily sent to prison for life when they were children. The authors describe what mitigation is and explain how to do it, including the importance of incorporating a reentry plan into the mitigation report.

Brief of Amicus Curiae the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers in Support of Appellant Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.