Dr Elizabeth Vartkessian’s clients are guilty of the most heinous crimes. But as Dr Vartkessian tells it, everyone has someone who loves them. Even people who have committed murder.
As a mitigator hired by criminal defence lawyers in the hope of reducing the severity of their clients’ punishments, Dr Vartkessian has spent hundreds of hours per case talking to mothers, siblings, teachers, and neighbours of a defendant, situating their crimes into context. As a detective of the accused person’s life, she learns details about familial behaviours and relationship patterns, community settings – and what she finds, every single time, is that when personal or generational trauma enters the body, it finds its way out eventually.
In this fascinating book, packed with the moving, real-life stories of the clients she has worked with over the past 20 years, The Deserving describes the vital role a mitigator plays in developing an understanding of how her clients arrived at the point in their life where they committed their crime. We learn that very few people (if anyone) are born evil but that the forces that shape us as we grow up can lead to the most tragic of outcomes.
Dr. Elizabeth Vartkessian is a mitigation specialist and has been investigating the life histories of people who have committed murder or other serious crimes since 2004. She has written and spoken widely on the importance of anchoring human dignity in the criminal legal system as the means for lasting change. Her research has been published in peer review journals, numerous edited volumes and law reviews. As a leader in the criminal defense community, Dr Vartkessian has been an invited speaker at professional conferences in the US and internationally.
