Cessie Alfonso Donates Mitigation Papers to Harvard University

[PHOTOS: Cessie Alfonso, LCSW, ACSW, CSW, and Kenvi Phillips, Curator for Race & Ethnicity, Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University]

At the request of Harvard University, I recently gifted my papers on capital mitigation to the Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America. My papers will allow researchers to examine my contribution to the abolition of the death penalty in New Jersey and other states and the establishment of the mitigation specialist as a profession. These documents will also provide insight into my years of consultation and expert testimony in the penalty phase of death penalty cases. For close to 35 years, I’ve educated criminal defense lawyers handling death penalty cases on how to conduct life histories on individuals.

The attorneys who were responsible for defending individuals charged on a state or federal level with capital murder were individuals who had very little experience with the client population they were charged to defend. Due to structural racism resulting in very little in-depth experience with their clients, these attorneys found themselves limited in their ability to engage their clients and their families. As a result, I began a 40-year struggle to educate attorneys on their clients’ lives and the dynamics that contributed to the crime in which they were charged.

In 1981, it was clear to me and others that attorneys needed to develop a defense approach that humanized their clients. For the following 15 years, I developed along with others a client-centered approach to representation.

For more information about the archives, please visit the website for the Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America: https://www.radcliffe.harvard.edu/schlesinger-library