Professor Mark Osler's work advocates for sentencing and clemency policies rooted in principles of human dignity. In 2016, 2019 and 2022, the graduating class chose him as Professor of the Year; in 2015 he won the Dean's Award for Outstanding Scholarship, and in 2013 he received the Outstanding Teaching award.
Osler's writing on clemency, sentencing and narcotics policy has appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Atlantic, and in law journals at Harvard, Stanford, the University of Chicago, Northwestern, the University of Texas, Georgetown, Ohio State, UNC, William and Mary and Rutgers. His University of Chicago Law Review article (with Rachel Barkow) was highlighted in a lead editorial in The New York Times, in which the Times' Editorial Board expressly embraced Barkow and Osler's argument for clemency reform. He is also the sole author of a criminal law casebook, Contemporary Criminal Law (West, 2018), which is now in its second edition.
A former federal prosecutor, he played a role in striking down the mandatory 100-to-1 ratio between crack and powder cocaine in the federal sentencing guidelines by winning the case of Spears v. United States in the U.S. Supreme Court, with the Court ruling that judges could categorically reject that ratio. He has testified as an expert before the United States Sentencing Commission and the United States House Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security.
Osler's 2009 book Jesus on Death Row (Abingdon Press) critiqued the American death penalty through the lens of Jesus' trial. His second book, Prosecuting Jesus (Westminster/John Knox, 2016) is a memoir of performing the Trial of Jesus in 11 states. He currently serves as the Ruthie Mattox Chair of Preaching at First Covenant Church-Minneapolis, and held the Byrd Preaching Chair at St. Martin's-by-the-Lake Episcopal Church in 2012. In 2011, he founded the first law school clinic specializing in federal commutations, and in 2015 he co-founded (with Rachel Barkow) the Clemency Resource Center, a one-year pop-up law firm that prepared clemency petitions. Between the two projects, over 100 people have been freed from prison.
The character of Professor Joe Fisher in the Samuel Goldwyn film American Violet was based on Osler, and in 2014 he was the subject of profiles in Rolling Stone and The American Prospect. He is a graduate of the College of William and Mary and Yale Law School.
The State of Federal Clemency (with Rachel Barkow), 7 Annual Review of Criminology 331 (2024).
Churches and the Death of Third Places, 33 Christian Ethics Today 18 (Spring 2023).
The Trump Clemencies: Chaos, Murderers, and Lost Opportunity, 31 William and Mary Bill of Rights Journal 487 (2023).
The Role of Clemency in Criminal Justice Reform, 34 Federal Sentencing Reporter 230 (2022).
What We Got Wrong in the War on Drugs, 17 St. Thomas Law Journal 968 (2022).
14 Steps Biden’s DOJ Can Take Now to Reform America’s Criminal Justice System (With Rachel Barkow), The Appeal, March 2021.
The First Step Act and the Brutal Timidity of Criminal Law Reform, 54 New England Law Review 161 (2020).
Memo to the President: Two Steps to Fix the Clemency Crisis, 16 St. Thomas Law Journal 329 (2020).
Negotiation Lessons from a Former Wiseguy, Michael Franzese (with Blaine McCormick and Christopher Meyer) 28 Journal of Management Inquiry 431 (October, 2019).
Clemency and the Soul of the Constitution, 34 Journal of Law & Politics 131 (2019).
Short of the Mountaintop: Race Neutrality, Criminal Law, and the Jericho Road Ahead, 49 University of Memphis Law Review 77 (2019).
Designed to Fail: The President’s Deference to the Department of Justice in Advancing Criminal Justice Reform (with Rachel Barkow). 59 William & Mary Law Review 387 (2017).
Fewer Hands, More Mercy: A Plea for a Better Clemency System, 41 Vermont Law Review 1 (2017).
Clementia, Obama, and Deborah Leff, 28 Federal Sentencing Reporter 309 (2016).
Prosecutors and Victims: Why Wrongful Convictions Matter (with Jeanne Bishop), 105 Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology 101 (2016).
Treating Drug Crimes as White-Collar Crimes (with Thea Johnson), 61Wayne State Law Review 1 (2016).
Restructuring Clemency: The Cost of Ignoring Clemency and a Plan for Renewal (with Rachel Barkow), 82 University of Chicago Law Review 1 (2015).
Forfeitures in a New Market-Reality Narcotics Policy, 52 Harvard Journal on Legislation 221 (2015).
1986: AIDS, Crack, and C. Everett Koop, 66 Rutgers Law Review 851 (2014).
Narcotics Prosecutors as Problem Solvers, 1 Stanford Journal of Criminal Law and Policy 1 (2014).
A Holocaust in Slow Motion: America’s Mass Incarceration and the Role of Discretion (With Judge Mark W. Bennett), 7 DePaul Journal for Social Justice 117 (2014).