Mark Osler

This past Sunday, a man named Michael Bradshaw reportedly tried to leave a Walmart store in College Station, Texas with a shopping cart full of goods he hadn't paid for. He was approached by security officers, and a scuffle ensued. One of the security guards fired a gun and shot...

I'm a sinner. At one time or another, in the course of my own advocacy (on the death penalty and other issues), I have committed each of the five sins I am about to describe. In fact, so have most who work in advocacy, whether they are progressive, conservative,...

Over the past week, two stories have dominated the news out of Mississippi. First, on Thursday, March 8, the Mississippi Supreme Court upheld former Governor Haley Barbour's controversial last-minute pardons of over 200 convicts. The second big story was the Republican primary in that state just five days later.

The...

Christianity is an odd religion in that the central human figure, Christ, is executed by the state. We don't see that in other faiths: Siddhartha Gautama Buddha died of food poisoning at age 80, and the Prophet Muhammad died of natural causes at 63.

It should mean something to...

I am the son of a painter. On summer days, I have often found an excuse to sit near him as he worked. I might pretend to read a book, but I'm really watching him. A better and more compelling story than any book can tell is unfolding in front...

Should we consider a candidate's religion when we vote? For many of us, the instinctive answer is "of course not!" To do so seems somehow contrary to the idea of separation of church and state, or prejudiced, or something like that. Examined more closely, though, that instinctive reaction may not...

I write this from the breakfast room of my comfortable home in Edina, Minnesota, a suburb of Minneapolis. People from other communities call Edina residents "cake-eaters," because of the relative wealth of its residents (other towns, they say, get the crumbs). Right now, Edina is blanketed in snow, and on...

There's a furor over morality right now in Oregon. On November 22, Governor John Kitzhaber announced that he was issuing a moratorium on executions in that state, and that the first reprieve was going to Gary Haugen, a double-murderer. Haugen was scheduled to die on December 6, and had waived...

Like so many others, I am saddened by the way our leaders have been wielding power-- to harm their opponents rather than to make the world better. So many of those leaders, on both sides, are professing Christians, but their sense of power pays little attention to what Jesus taught.

This past October, I wrote a piece in The Huffington Post entitled "Repentance of an Anti-Gay Bigot." Among the dozens of responses I received were many from my former law students at Baylor University, where I taught for 10 years. They were heart-wrenching, revealing the pain of attending Baylor in...

On Aug. 18, President Obama issued an executive order promoting diversity in the workplace. In that order, he set out a compelling and principled reason for diversity: "We are at our best when we draw on the talents of all parts of our society, and our greatest accomplishments are achieved...

As someone who has worked for the past decade at religiously-affiliated institutions, I have on occasion had the opportunity to participate in what has become a regular Christian ritual in some places: The prayer breakfast. What fascinates me about these events is that they drape themselves in the faith, yet...

I became a prosecutor in 1995 because I believed in order and justice. I went to Detroit to be a prosecutor because it seemed like a place in desperate need of order, justice, and the talents of expatriates like me who had drifted off to richer, more stable places.

Like...

I recently heard a radio preacher explain how it was OK to be rich -- that, in fact, it was a mark of being blessed by God. It was a rational argument. It is just common sense, after all: If God likes us, we will be rewarded with money and...

The war on drugs is over. Drugs won.

There seem to be two common answers as to what to do next. The political establishment (including the Obama administration) largely supports doing the same things we always have -- locking up lots of people who are selling, making or carrying drugs....

In my days as a federal prosecutor in Detroit, I played a role in cases against Hezbollah, Chinese snakeheads, crack dealers, and brilliant counterfeiters, but this may have been the toughest one of all.

The judge was a former attorney general.

My opposing counsel was a trial skills professor, author,...

Governor Pat Quinn has now put pen to paper and abolished the death penalty in Illinois. The signing was a quiet, solemn event, held in private and attended by only a handful of invited guests.

The tone set by Governor Quinn was just right. I am among...

As Illinois Governor Pat Quinn continues to ponder a bill to abolish the death penalty, one document before him is a letter from Attorney General Lisa Madigan. In that letter, Madigan refers to several pending cases and urges the governor to veto that bill.

As a former prosecutor who now...

A few weeks ago, as I was talking about civil political discourse at a church here in Minnesota, I experienced my first heckler. A middle aged man in coat and tie, he loudly yelled, "no, no!" and then stalked out of the room. It was thrilling, and confusing. I have...

A troubled loner with a gun decided to kill his Democratic Congresswoman outside a Tucson grocery store, and now six people are dead. As a former prosecutor who now trains future prosecutors, I grieve with a heavy heart. As a Christian, I am troubled. The blood in the desert will...