The Weight of Discretion: Moral Injury in Prosecution
Every day prosecutors do their best to serve the interests of justice in a complex, imperfect system. And while sometimes true justice is served, it’s often the case that we are exposed to and sometimes complicit in a process that conflicts with our values.
Moral injury is distinct from burnout and vicarious trauma. It is the damage done to a person’s conscience when they participate in, witness, or fail to prevent something that violates their own moral beliefs. Prosecutors carry the knowledge that the same process meant to protect can cause harm. Victims are retraumatized by the process itself. Defendants are pulled into a system that frequently deepens the conditions that brought them there. State laws, office policy, and public pressure may demand punitive approaches that you know, from experience and from evidence, are not likely to rehabilitate. Doing your job well and doing right by the people in front of you are not always the same act, and living in that gap over years leaves a mark.
This session gives participants language for something they have felt for a long time and have not often been given permission to say out loud. We will name the sources of moral injury specific to prosecution, distinguish it from burnout and secondary traumatic stress, and explore what moral repair looks like both individually and within an office culture. We will also talk honestly about the question few trainings will touch: how to tell the difference between a hard season and a signal that it is time to leave this work, and why leaving well is a legitimate outcome rather than a failure.
Join us for this participatory session that will support prosecutors in recognizing moral injury and identifying concrete practices for moral repair and sustainable work.
Eligible for 1.25 Hour of Wellness CLE Credit in CA. CLE self-submission options in other states. Email us if you have questions regarding CLE credit.
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Speaker
Robyn C. Sordelett is the Survivor Center Director at the Prosecutors Alliance and a nationally recognized speaker on sustainable advocacy and survivor-centered best practices. A clinical social worker by training and a 2026 Office of the Virginia Attorney General Unsung Hero Award winner, she has built her career across the criminal justice system, community-based organizations, and policy spaces, always centering trauma, resilience, and systemic change. At the Prosecutors Alliance, she leads efforts to center survivors in conversations about justice and reform while supporting victim advocates’ psychological and emotional well-being, exploring vicarious trauma, burnout, and the conditions that foster resilience and shared power. A frequent national presenter, Robyn is regularly consulted on organizational wellness and trauma-responsive advocacy, with a core focus on reconnecting justice workers with the purpose that brought them to the field. She is also deeply interested in work that advances collaborative, trauma-responsive approaches to domestic and sexual violence and innovative responses to gender-based violence beyond traditional systems. Robyn was appointed by Governor Abigail Spanberger to the Criminal Justice Services Board in 2026, serves on the National Organization for Victim Advocacy’s Public Policy Committee, and stays up far too late reading mystery novels. Robyn holds a B.A. in English and Sociology from the University of Richmond and an M.S.W. from the University of Southern California.