Sentencing Videos

The sentencing mitigation video is the most well-established “genre” of defense video. The New York Times observes:

“… a growing number of lawyers are creating empathetic biographical mini-documentaries, or “sentencing videos,” to reduce their clients’ prison sentences. Inspired by the storytelling techniques of traditional documentary film, some lawyers team up with independent filmmakers while others become filmmakers themselves. These films are made for an audience of one: the presiding judge.”

This marks a significant departure from past practice, in which the defense sentencing submission typically has consisted of the Sentencing Memorandum and, if the client is lucky enough to have a mitigation team working for him, a written social history attached as an exhibit to the defense sentencing memorandum.  The social history tells the defendant’s life story, usually in a memo of 20 pages or less, with an emphasis on humanizing the defendant by describing his life in totality — achievements, challenges, key relationships, all presented in a carefully crafted report, which includes character reference letters as an attachment, with quotes from the letters often incorporated into the body of the report. Such reports have long been recognized as helpful in mitigation, but they are also, ultimately, words on a page.

The Sentencing Mitigation Video is designed to present the same categories of information, but more impactfully. Instead of “words on a page” — the viewer is able to see and hear the defendant, his/her family, as well as other character witnesses.