The application deadline is July 16, 2024, although applicants are encouraged to submit materials as early as possible, as decisions will be made on a rolling basis.
Scharlette Holdman Mitigation Mentorship Program
American Civil Liberties Union Foundation
Capital Punishment Project
2024-2025 Mitigation Mentorship Fellowship Application
Mitigation specialists are an indispensable part of any competent capital defense team. We are charged with the critically important task of investigating capital defendants’ life stories to demonstrate their humanity and to contextualize alleged offenses to those who make charging
and sentencing determinations. Mitigation evidence is often the difference between a trial and a plea, or between an extreme sentence and an opportunity for release. Despite the undeniable importance of such evidence, there is a serious shortage of skilled, experienced mitigation specialists in many parts of the country.
ACLU’s Scharlette Holdman Mitigation Mentorship Program directly addresses the gaping holes in mitigation services in the deadliest death penalty jurisdictions by providing intensive training and mentorship to a class of 8-12 fellows each year. Fellows are early to mid-career practitioners
across the United States who will each be paired with a national expert in mitigation. The mitigation mentors for this year-long program will each have 10-25 years of mitigation experience on capital cases. They will provide direct, hands-on assistance, spending days at a
time on the ground with the fellows as they conduct mitigation investigations in their current cases.1 Fellows have opportunities to learn best practices and strengthen skills necessary to search for, identify, organize, develop, and present mitigation evidence. Fellows will not only improve the representation provided to their own clients, but will raise the standard of care in their respective jurisdictions and pass on their knowledge to their team members, their colleagues, and future generations of mitigation specialists.
See the full announcement here.
Fellowship applicants should fill out the application form here, including a prompt to upload your resume. If you have any trouble with the application form, please contact Jessica Poland at
[email protected].
Advancing Real Change, Inc. will host quarterly 75-minute Zoom calls for capital defenders on Tuesdays at 3:30 p.m. ET /…
Rita Radostitz, Susannah Sheffer, and Katherine Ashton
Ask a Mitigation Specialist, a resource program that allows defenders to meet directly and privately with a mitigation specialist for…
Amy Williams & Heather Barrow