The Deserving: What the Lives of the Condemned Reveal About American Justice

We need the work that is mitigation. It is mercy work.

For readers of Just Mercy and The New Jim Crow, a groundbreaking new take on the American justice system from one of its unknown "mercy workers," offering a powerful new vision of responsibility, punishment, and repair.

"The first book I'm aware of to pull back the curtain on a life-saving field most have never heard of: mitigation." --Sister Helen Prejean, author of Dead Man Walking, from the foreword

Elizabeth Vartkessian works with cr...