Lockett v. Ohio

Mitigating circumstances, or mitigating factors, are facts which, though they do not exonerate the defendant, may serve to reduce the charge or the punishment. In civil actions, for instance, the defense will often ask the jury to consider mitigating circumstances in order to reduce the damages or the extent of the defendant's liability. Thus the legal counsel for a corporation accused of racist hiring practices may seek to show such mitigating factors as the company's heavy investment in inner-city community development programs.

As for mitigating circumstances in criminal law, these are most often brought to bear in cases where the death penalty is among the forms of punishment available. Mitigating circumstances could include mental illness, the youth of the defendant, economic hardship, and childhood abuse. Though the use of mitigating circumstances often generates little sympathy among the population as a whole, to whom the idea of justifying heinous crimes on the basis of past abuse has become something of a running joke, the Supreme Court has ruled that juries must consider mitigating circumstances in death-penalty cases. The Court has used as its basis the Eighth Amendment prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment, and the Fourteenth Amendment's extension of due process to the states.