What if the question isn’t what someone deserves but what it would take for them to live a good life? In this episode, Justin Yentes sits down with Liz, a pioneering mitigation specialist and author of the upcoming book The Deserving. Through decades of work on capital cases, Liz has helped courts see the full humanity of people facing society’s harshest punishments. Together, they unpack how trauma, poverty, intergenerational harm, and systemic failure shape lives long before the justice system ever becomes involved and why punishment alone cannot create safety or justice. Liz also shares the cases that changed her, the patterns she’s seen across hundreds of lives, and why mitigation isn’t about excuses, it’s about context, truth, and moral clarity.

Key Topics Covered:

• Why jurors often never h ...