Legal Grounds | Sophia Laurenzi on Seeing the Whole Person, the Nature of Death, and Advocating for the Voiceless

While both are unavoidable, when it comes to Death and Taxes a majority of us never have to navigate bureaucracies when it comes to the former. 

For me, Capital Punishment has always been an interesting choice of language in that it implies that the act of dying is a punishment in & of itself; “capital” simply acts as a modifier for how and by whom this “punishment” is dispensed. 

Now, when thinking about these things, I would be remiss to point out that I have the luxury of doing so in the hypothetical or philosophical sense. 

But for my guest today, wrestling with death has been a tangible experience. One that, as I hope our conversation today reminds listeners, manifests itself in emotional, physical, and social pain. 

Before becoming a journalist, Sophia Laurenzi worked alongside death-row inmates in the states of Louisiana and Tennessee. 

As a capital defense investigator she strived to bring her clients into their legal process so she could, as she wrote in one of her many articles, “ensure they received a meaningful, through defense they were constitutionally entitled to.

Now as a journalist, Sophia’s work covers grief, criminal justice, and mental health, all of which are realms she has inhabited not just in her professional life, but her personal one as well. 

It is a wide-ranging conversation that felt, for me, both illuminating and necessary. Hopefully you’ll feel the same. 

Enjoy the show.

SHOWNOTES:

Sophia's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sophia_laurenzi/
Sophia's Website: https://www.sophialaurenzi.com/
Sophia's Book Recommendation: Why Fish Don't Exist - by Lulu Miller