Mitigation and Reentry Services
Mitigation
In 2022, with funding from the Byrne Justice Assistance Grant, MAACS began offering mitigation services to support roster attorneys. Mitigation is a powerful tool that can be used in a variety of ways to improve clients’ sentencing outcomes. Mitigation often involves learning about and presenting a client’s social history to help the court recognize the client as an entire person, rather than just the sum of the facts of their case.
The program quickly proved its worth. Year after year, a growing number of attorneys saw the impact of collaborating with a mitigation specialist. Since the inception of the program, the MAACS mitigation team has contributed to hundreds of years in sentence reductions for their clients.
MAACS now has three full-time mitigation specialists to support roster attorneys: two specialists who work exclusively with Juvenile Life without Parole clients, and one specialist who works with clients on Direct Appeal.
Examples of mitigation services include:
- Sentencing memos
- Client/family interviews
- Allocution preparation
- Support with experts
- Records collection and review
- Collecting letters of support
- Social science research
- Reentry planning
- Consultation
As part of mitigation services, MAACS attorneys can also request reentry support to help identify a reentry plan for clients transitioning back into the community. These reentry plans may include: identifying a client's support network, developing detailed housing and resource investigation reports, assistance with preparing resumes, and locating employment and/or schooling prospects. In addition to developing reentry plans, the MAACS mitigation team can help prepare clients for upcoming parole hearings.
To request mitigation and/or reentry support on a case, MAACS roster attorneys can submit a Request Form to maacsmitigation@sado.org.
Please feel free to reach out to maacsmitigation@sado.org with any questions, or to brainstorm a case prior to submitting a request.
