A nationally renowned capital mitigation specialist, Dani Waller joined the Indiana Federal Community Defenders Office in 2015. Dani came to the IFCD from a thriving private practice where she was a nationally requested mitigation specialist on high profile death penalty cases across the United States.
In her supervisory role, Dani strives to create a team centered environment. Her team is encouraged to be constantly learning and training in order to provide comprehensive sentencing memorandums on behalf of clients. Dani and her team work closely with the attorneys, clients and a client’s family and friends to help identify issues that contributed to their outcome. The goal of the team is to provide context on behalf of convicted defendants that addresses a client’s particular vulnerabilities and how they came to be before a federal court for sentencing. Dani and her team also work to create innovative plans for the future that address a client’s needs for rehabilitative service. Increasing community based rehabilitative efforts and decreasing prison sentences, as well as recidivism is at the forefront of their work.
Dani remains a frequently requested guest lecturer and often travels to present at national mitigation conferences. Dani creates videos for client’s sentencing hearings and trains on the use of videos at sentencing.
In her time away from the office Dani enjoys art collecting, gardening, home renovation and decoration, and spending time with her husband and ever-growing motley crew of dogs.