John Bessler, an Associate Professor at the University of Baltimore School of Law, teaches a death penalty seminar, a course he previously taught at the University of Minnesota Law School, The George Washington University Law School, the University of Baltimore School of Law, and Rutgers School of Law. He clerked for U.S. Magistrate Judge John M. Mason of the District of Minnesota, and practiced law full-time for many years in the area of civil litigation as a partner at the Minneapolis law firm of Kelly & Berens, P.A. Professor Bessler has written ten books, including several books on the subject of capital punishment. Two of those books, Death in the Dark: Midnight Executions in America (Northeastern University Press, 1997) and Legacy of Violence: Lynch Mobs and Executions in Minnesota (University of Minnesota Press, 2003), were Minnesota Book Award finalists.