Geonarrative Services LLC

Locating your client's life story

We assist criminal defense teams and their clients by producing compelling multi-media mitigation geonarrative exhibits and providing expert testimony.

We have worked on federal, state, military, capital, non-capital, and Miller cases.

To access example materials please click on the Mitigation Materials link above and enter the password you were given.

Social geography is an important component of any competent investigation of the life of those who are charged with capital murder. Through my work with Dr. Urbanik, I have had the opportunity to understand my client's life experience through a very important lens.

- Cyndy Short, CLS Mitigation

Thanks to Julie Urbanik and her work, we were able to have a reasonable bail set for our client who faces very serious homicide charges and are using Body mapping on two more cases. Body mapping is now a tool in our video mitigation tool belt to take our advocacy to a new level. We were able to change minds using this innovative technique even with the most traditional attorneys and judges.

-Nicole Mull, Video Mitigation Unit, NY Legal Aid

When an attorney brings your exhibits to the table they are actually ushering in the humanity of everyone in the room.

- Victoria Rusk, Mitigation University

It was a real privilege to be interviewed by Doug Passon about my mitigation work for his video/podcast series Set for Sentencing. In this episode we discuss geography, mitigation geonarratives, body maps (and the process of creating them), as well as how my materials can be used by defense teams.

Benefits and Value

Enriched experience for decision makers
Provides new ways to share your client's story
Contributes to preparing the client and/or key parties for testifying
Life context narratives demonstrate client's ability for self-reflection
Place-based narratives can help make the client more "relatable"
Educates the judge/jury about the larger social forces that shaped the client's life choices

Work Products

Social geography overview of client's life context from the ages of 0-18 in relation to DOJ risk/protective factors.
Body maps and body map videos with client. Body maps are a method for telling autobiographies using hand-drawn symbols.
Place-based memory-walk videos
Societal context reports/media on specific topics
Social geography research summaries
Social geography expert testimony

Publications

2021 Applied geonarratives: Arts-based social geography in criminal defense mitigation. Social Sciences &

Humanities Open 4 (1): 1-10. Click here for access to full article.

These are three examples of body maps used for sentencing mitigation. We facilitate the production of these by clients and then produce short films that both tell and show the stories of client's lives.