Russell Stetler has investigated all aspects of capital cases, both trial and postconviction, since 1980. He served as chief investigator at the California Appellate Project from 1990 to 1995, focusing on federal habeas cases. From 1995 to 2005, he was the Director of Investigation and Mitigation at the New York Capital Defender Office. His publications on capital cases include articles on investigating wrongful convictions, mitigation evidence, mental health issues, and working with victims’ survivors. He is coauthor of chapters on psychiatric issues in death penalty cases in two recent books on forensic mental health. Over the past two decades, he has lectured extensively on capital case investigation at various national training conferences and for the capital defense bar of over thirty of the death-penalty jurisdictions around the country. Since 2005, he has worked with the federal death penalty projects as their national mitigation coordinator, based in the Oakland office of the Federal Public Defender of Northern California.

Russell Stetler

National Mitigation Coordinator
Office of the Federal Public Defender
555 12th Street, Suite 650
Oakland, California 94607
(510) 637-3500 (voice)
(510) 637-3507 (fax)

russell_stetler@fd.org