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Mitigation Program
Home » Our Program » Mitigation
The FTI Mitigation Program began in June of 2004 in Virginia and North Carolina. Well before the U.S. Supreme Court made clear in Wiggins v. Smith (2003) that lawyers have a duty to conduct a full background investigation of their clients in capital cases, FTI was brainstorming different ways to solve the problem of how to identify, recruit, train, and supervise new mitigation investigators. There are not nearly enough qualified mitigation specialists to carry out the indispensable work of investigating the tragic life histories of the hundreds of people potentially facing the death penalty in North Carolina each year. Our mitigation fellows are provided with top-notch training and supervision at the beginning of their year-long fellowship while assisting with discrete investigative tasks on capital cases.
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Zach joined FTI as a Mitigation Fellow in June of 2004. Since then, he has worked on numerous death penalty cases, at both the pre-trial and post-conviction stages. In addition to his case work, Zach provides assistance and training to the Law Fellows on matters related to mitigation. He currently acts as the Field Instructor for a social work student from the UNC School of Social Work. Zach completed his undergraduate work at Bates College in Maine, earning a B.A. in psychology. Before getting his Masters in Social Work from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Zach coached collegiate soccer and worked with people with severe and persistent mental illness at Threshold in Durham, NC. Zach interned at the Chatham County Dispute Settlement Center, where he became a trained volunteer community mediator, and with the Chatham Counseling Center, where he served a wide range of clients in need of mental health services.
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Cynthia Ayres, Virginia mitigation supervisor, mitigation investigator (CT)
Kelly Callahan Fisher, Charlotte mitigation fellow, mitigation investigator (NC)
Stephanie Moore, North Carolina mitigation supervisor, mitigation investigator (NC)
Jasmine Teter, Virginia mitigation fellow, mitigation investigator (AZ)
We are not taking applications for new mitigation fellows at this time.
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