Mark Osler, a law professor at the University of St. Thomas School of Law and a nationally recognized expert on clemency, was featured in Billboard as the publication reported on R. Kelly's petition asking the Trump administration to commute his prison sentence. The story examined the presidential clemency process and highlighted Osler's perspective on how the traditional pardon system has changed in recent years.
From the article:
Historically, the Pardon Attorney’s office has conducted a structured, multi-level review of clemency applications before deciding whether to send a recommendation along to the White House for a final decision. Trump, however, has been known to break with this tradition and grant pardons and commutations unilaterally based largely on lobbying within his inner circle. As Mark Osler, a leading clemency attorney and law professor at the University of St. Thomas told Billboard last year, “Themechanism is falling apart.” Kelly’s legal team seems to understand this; even before filing an official clemency petition, his lawyer, Beau Brindley, has been publicly appealing to Trump directly for relief. Last June, for example, Brindley said in a statement to Billboard that Trump “is the only one with both the power and the courage” to set Kelly free.
