Ask a Mitigation Specialist
Ask a Mitigation Specialist, a resource program that allows defenders to meet directly and privately with a mitigation specialist for specific technical assistance. Complete the form below for a 25-minute session with experienced mitigation professionals. The information discussed during each session is confidential. Complete the registration form to request an appointment.
Heather Barrow
Heather began her career over 26 years ago working with Bryan Stevenson at EJI while still a college student earning her degree in History at Alabama State University in Montgomery, Alabama.
Heather worked on many projects during her two stints at EJI including race and poverty, pardon and parole revocation, direct rehabilitation and restoration with clients, discrimination in jury selection, reform of death in prison sentences for children, along with investigation and mitigation in post-conviction capital cases.
She has been a self-employed mitigation expert in both capital trial and post-conviction cases in several states throughout the Southeast. She has worked as an Investigator & Mitigation Specialist in a post-conviction office in Tennessee, as Chief Investigator at a state post-conviction office in Florida, and at a Federal CHU in Florida. Recently, Heather worked with the Southern Poverty Law Center. She was fortunate enough to work on multiple matters including censorship in education and was the investigator in the lawsuit filed by multiple nonprofits challenging the State of Louisiana imprisoning children on the former death row at Angola. That lawsuit led to the removal of children from Angola prison.
Heather has worked on hundreds of capital cases in both trial and post-conviction.
She is currently a Special Investigator and Mitigation Specialist with the Kansas Capital Habeas Unit.
Michelle Gaudet
Michelle is a mitigation specialist with more than a decade of experience mitigating on behalf of people facing the death penalty and other extreme sentences. She developed her expertise in capital mitigation over twelve years at Full Picture Justice (formerly Community Resource Initiative) where she focused on pre-trial representation in state and federal jurisdictions across the country. She served as the organization’s Co-Executive Director for four years while maintaining a mitigation practice and mentoring mitigation specialists both inside and outside the organization. In 2024 she began a private practice. Michelle has spearheaded investigations in multiple countries across four continents and has regularly trained legal professionals at CLE approved seminars including the Capital Case Defense Seminar and the Shechmeister Death Penalty College.
Ask a Mitigation Specialist, a resource program that allows defenders to meet directly and privately with a mitigation specialist for…
Alicia Amezcua-Rodriguez & Beth Cahill
Ask a Mitigation Specialist, a resource program that allows defenders to meet directly and privately with a mitigation specialist for…
Lela Hubbard and Scarlet Nerad
Ask a Mitigation Specialist, a resource program that allows defenders to meet directly and privately with a mitigation specialist for…
Heather Barrow & Indrani Belaratnam