Making the Case for Life CLE program will focus on the investigation, development, and presentation of penalty phase mitigation evidence in capital cases.

Nationally recognized experts will address topics including:

• Remorse and redemption as mitigation themes
• Critical issues in early childhood
• Substance abuse: aggravation or mitigation,
• Investigating your client's mental illness,
• Litigating race: social science and trial tactics,
• Neuroscience: truth and lies,
• Challenging lethal injection,
• Combating future dangerousness, and more.

Faculty will also lead an in-depth discussion of the science of capital jury selection, and capital defense teams will be able to brainstorm their capital cases during a separate track entitled, Teams for Life: Winning Cases through Mitigation. This is a two-day, bring-your-own-case program designed to teach capital defense teams to:

• develop a mitigation investigation plan
• develop an integrated theory for life
• explore mitigation themes
• plan use of mitigation evidence to settle cases and to prepare for trial
• anticipate juror responses to mitigation evidence