“Well I grew up poor and I didn’t go off committing crimes!” Arguably, this is the most common response those that work in the field of mitigation hear when they are trying to explain what mitigation is. To tackle this question and discuss take another look at the importance of non-capital mitigation, Hunter spoke with Victoria Rusk. She is a mitigation expert, author, and founder of Mitigation University and Heart of Justice, and on today’s episode, Victoria and Hunter take another deep dive at trying to understand the best way to confront the biases that jurors, judges, prosecutors, and yes, public defenders, have during a criminal trial. In confronting these biases, there is hope that a mitigation specialist can connect the various stakeholders in the legal system with the humanity of the defendants in each case.   Guest: Victoria Rusk, Founder of Mitigation University and Heart of Justice     Resources: Follow Victoria on Linked In https://www.linkedin.com/in/victoria-rusk-a4695292?trk=public_post_feed-actor-name Heart of Justice https://www.heartofjustice.org/ Mitigation University https://mitigationuniversity.com/ "The French" Tweet https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.forbes.com/sites/chrisobrien/2023/01/27/ap-apologizes-for-the-french-tweet-that-triggered-viral-backlash/amp/     Contact Hunter Parnell: Publicdefenseless@gmail.com  Instagram @PublicDefenselessPodcast Twitter                                                                 @PDefenselessPod www.publicdefenseless.com