Margaret Colgate Love and Mark Osler will debate a central question on clemency:  Should the pardon power be used to address systemic problems in the law?  Osler, adopting the view of practical politician Alexander Hamilton, will argue that it should. Ms. Love, a former Pardon Attorney of the United States, will adopt the philosophy of Hamilton's contemporary Cesare Beccaria and argue for a more conservative role for clemency in compensating for defects in the law. Eric Hylok, UST School of Law 3L working at the Federal Commutations Clinic, will moderate the program. 

Margaret Colgate Love, attorney, Law Office of Margaret Love, specializes in executive clemency and restoration of rights, sentencing and corrections policy, and legal and government ethics. She has written and lectured widely on  pardon policy and practice, and on the collateral consequences of a criminal conviction, and is  recognized as one of the nation's leading authorities on clemency and related relief issues.

Mark Osler, professor of law at the Univesity of St. Thomas, writes on clemency, sentencing, and narcotics policy and has appeared in The New York Times and law journals at Harvard, Stanford, Rutgers, Northwestern, Wayne State, DePaul and the University of Chicago. 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.