Elizabeth Vartkessian on Mitigation and "The Deserving"

In the March 2026 episode of 12:01: The Death Penalty in Context, DPI Managing Director Anne Holsinger speaks with Elizabeth Vartkessian (pictured), the executive director of Advancing Real Change (ARC), a national non-profit that works to provide mitigation investigation services and training that ensure the full life histories of individuals facing extreme sentences are presented to judges and juries. Ms. Vartkessian is a mitigation specialist who has spent decades investigating the lives and backgrounds of individuals facing the death penalty in order to present mitigating evidence to juries. Her new book, The Deserving: What the Lives of the Condemned Reveal about American Justice, explores her experience in capital defense and her deep professional relationship with Wesley Purkey, a federal prisoner executed in 2020.