Mitigation is an extremely important part of zealous advocacy in criminal defense. Mitigation is where we investigate the client – their story, their background, and information that helps the state understand who they are. Often, mitigating information covers and presents any trauma, abuse, or neglect suffered by a person. Mitigation reports discuss how any trauma or substance use affects a person’s development. However, mitigation is not solely the negative events that have happened to a client – mitigation also covers how a person is amenable to rehabilitation, positive performance or accomplishments, role in the community and family, and evidence of remorse for crimes committed.
We often hear stories of innocent people released from prison after being exonerated through DNA evidence. In these cases, an innocent person is convicted of a crime someone else committed. However, there is a less-discussed but no less disturbing trend in our justice system: no crime wrongful convictions. A shocking number of people are convicted of crimes that never actually occurred. These include suicides that are charged as homicides, accidental fires charged as arson, or assaults that never transpired.
Prior to Houston-Sconiers, prosecutors could induce children to plead to lengthy prison terms through over-charging and coercive negotiation. And judges had no authority to intervene. Houston-Sconiers and Domingo-Cornelio took the power away from prosecutors—who could operate without oversight and behind closed doors—and placed it in the hands of judges. So, King County elected prosecutor Dan Satterberg filed an appeal to the United States Supreme Court. Dan Satterberg argues that this attempt to undo a major advance in juvenile justice reform is not out of keeping with his self-proclaimed identity as a “progressive prosecutor.” As President Biden likes to say, we call malarky.
A key case in Kitsap County has far-reaching implications for suppressing results from the Drager machine in DUI cases. If you are charged with any intoxicated driving related offenses in Kitsap County District Court, and the State (also known as the Prosecutor) attempts to introduce any test results generated by a Dräger breathalyzer machine against you, you and/or your lawyer should be filing an immediate motion to suppress any such breath test results generated by the Dräger machine
