A Psychobiographical Approach to the Evaluation for Sentence Mitigation

Abstract

Most state and the federal sentencing guidelines include a “catchall” category of potential mitigators, allowing the capital defendant to put forth evidence, at sentencing, of any issue that might bear on the question of moral culpability. This broad category of potentially mitigating information is sometimes given short shrift, in favor of traditional diagnostic findings. Because death is different from all other punishments in its finality, the mental health evaluator bears a special burden, under the Lockett doctrine, to explore all factors that shaped the defendant's developments. A psychobiographical approach to evaluation is described.