Practice areas · 6 / 12

Mitigation

A criminal case is never just the charge. The State sees a police report; the prosecutor and the judge should see a whole person, and it is the defense that puts that person in front of them. Mitigation is the work of gathering everything about a client’s life that explains the conduct, reduces the exposure, or argues for a second chance, and putting it to use where it counts: at the negotiating table and at sentencing.

That information is rarely in the file. It has to be found. Family support and the people who will stand behind a client; a history of substance abuse or mental health struggles that went untreated; a traumatic upbringing and the circumstances of a life; the absence of any criminal record, or of any violent one; the loss of a job, a home, or a marriage that preceded the offense. Each of these is a fact a prosecutor must weigh before making an offer and a judge must consider before imposing a sentence. Under Arizona law, sentences for most felonies fall within a range, and it is the mitigating circumstances that move a sentence from the presumptive term toward the minimum, or from prison toward probation.

Ms. Jakobe begins the mitigation investigation at the first meeting, not after a conviction. She gathers records, interviews family, employers, and treatment providers, works with evaluators where they are needed, and builds a mitigation presentation the State cannot ignore. The goal is a resolution that reflects who the client is, not only what the charge says.