John Bessler

Biography

Bessler has taught at the University of Baltimore School of Law since 2009, and he has also taught at the University of Minnesota Law School, the George Washington University Law School, the Georgetown University Law Center, and Rutgers School of Law-Camden. He clerked for U.S. Magistrate Judge John M. Mason of the District of Minnesota, and practiced law for many years in the area of civil litigation as a partner at the Minneapolis law firm of Kelly & Berens, P.A. He has written seven books, five on the subject of capital punishment, one on the origins of American law, and one on the craft of writing. His undergraduate degree is in political science, and in addition to an M.F.A. in Writing, he has a master's degree in international human rights law. His law review articles have appeared in the American Criminal Law Review, the Indiana Law Journal, the Arkansas Law Review, and elsewhere, and his books have received numerous awards. His recent book, The Birth of American Law: An Italian Philosopher and the American Revolution (Carolina Academic Press, 2014), was the recipient of the 2015 Scribes Book Award, an annual award given out since 1961 for "the best work of legal scholarship published during the previous year." That book also earned a First Prize in the American Association for Italian Studies Book Award competition and was the Gold Winner in the IndieFab Book Award competition in the history category. Bessler, a two-time Minnesota Book Award finalist, also currently teaches a capital punishment seminar as an adjunct professor at the Georgetown University Law Center. He recently edited Justice Stephen Breyer's, Against the Death Penalty, a book which reprints, contextualizes and annotates Justice Stephen Breyer's recent dissent in Glossip v. Gross, 135 S. Ct. 2726 (2015). That book will be published by Brookings Institution Press in August 2016. He is also of counsel to the Minneapolis law firm of Berens & Miller, P.A., which handles complex commercial litigation.

Research Interest

 Capital Punishment Civil Procedure Contracts Human Rights Lawyering Skills