Update June 2023: Our project was featured in the New York Times! Read here: “Lights, Camera, Criminal Defense: Lawyers Pick Up Cameras to Aid Clients”

Before the video, we had no opportunity. We had no guidance. We had no way of telling our story. Neil had no way of telling his story. All he had was the case over his head and you gave him a voice. This project gave him a voice. The video allowed him to speak, and it allowed people in the courts to see him as a person rather than a mistake he made 20 years prior.” 

– Natasha Whyte, partner of Legal Aid Society client

The United States has more than two-million people in its prisons and jails, more than any other country in the world. This comes at a great human and financial cost and disproportionately impacts people of color and low income communities. This reliance on mass incarceration does not address the root causes of violence or keep our communities safer. Public defenders are faced with an uphill battle of trying to represent clients who are navigating a system that is punitive and dehumanizing. 

Guided by the work of decarceration movements and abolitionist organizers, advocates and public defenders are increasingly employing creative tactics to fight for policy change and provide innovative services to those impacted by an unjust, criminal legal system. The WITNESS U.S. team has been supporting these efforts through providing collaboration and guidance around the use of video for clemency, parole and sentencing mitigation. These videos help to highlight aspects of someone’s personality, achievements or growth that might otherwise get lost in mountains of paperwork being reviewed by a judge, board, or district attorney.

In 2019, we began working with The Legal Aid Society to explore clients’ lives through video to convey their character, aspirations, traumas, difficulties, and often, transformation, and to make this type of mitigation video more accessible to public defenders, social workers and the people they serve. In certain cases, video can be more effective than traditional written mitigation requests, with extraordinary potential for low-income clients.  So far we’ve supported the creation of over 22 videos which have led to drastically reduced sentences, alternatives to incarceration and elimination of bail conditions, resulting in over 55 years of “time saved”. (We borrow the idea of “time saved” versus “time served” from Raj Jayadev from Silicon Valley De-bug, a participatory defense organization who has helped inform our work).  

Watch the new video we co-produced to learn more about the work. Continue reading below for an interview with Nicole Mull, Senior Attorney at The Legal Aid Society who is spearheading these efforts.

Q&A with Nicole Mull, Senior Attorney at The Legal Aid Society

Find additional tips and resources for creating mitigation videos on the WITNESS Legal Video Advocacy page.

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