What is a mitigation packet? These are documents prepared by your attorney, that show who you are as a human being and why you should be sentenced a certain way. These documents give the court and or the district attorney’s office information to consider when negotiating a deal in your case, this might include letters of support from friends, family members, and our work colleagues. It could also include letters of support from church or organizations that you volunteer with. We could also put in pictures of you with your family at work or with your pets. The package could also include any awards or recognitions, especially if you served in the military or have been recognized at work or in the community. The goal is to outline who you are as a person. So the focus is not on the alleged crime that you committed. Some mitigating factors we may want to include in the package are proof that you are employed and even more.
So if you’ve been at the same job for a long time, if you suffer from some kind of substance abuse or addiction proof that you’ve been to rehabilitation or a treatment center circumstances at the time of the alleged offense, like stress being provoked or emotional problems that might not excuse the crime, but might offer an explanation of why you did what you did. We may also want to include any mental or physical illness, any past abuse that you might’ve suffered that resulted in criminal activity, or just flat-out genuine remorse and explaining how sorry you are for everything that happened, depending on the strategies from your attorney in this mitigation packet, depending on strategy as well. We may also want to address whether you are coming to the court with clean hands and have no prior criminal record. Or if you do have a past criminal record proof that you successfully completed probation and went to all of your court appearances, maybe you admitted and acknowledged wrongdoing early on in the process and or cooperated with the police.
We may want to include the culpability or the fault of the victim, or perhaps how the victim contributed to the offense. If you made restitution or payments to people affected by your crime, we definitely want to include that in the package. If there are co-defendants involved, maybe you played a minor role, especially whether you were coerced, threatened or forced to participate. Maybe you felt forced to commit the crime, to provide necessities for yourself or for your family. If the victim in the case suffered great bodily injury. And we have proof that the injuries were not that serious, we will want to show proof of that as well. Now, there may be allegations that the victims are vulnerable. People like miners, the elderly, or people with disabilities, or that you committed a hate crime or committed a crime using weapons. The mitigation packet is ultimately used to present another side of the coin that the district attorney’s office and or the court won’t see in the police report. Our goal at Lamano law office is to present information, to show who you are as a human being and not just another case number. If you have questions about how a mitigation packet can apply to you and your case, please give us a call. Hope this was informative. And thanks for listening.
