William G. Otis

University of North Carolina, BA, 1968; Stanford Law School, JD, 1974, Ohlman Prize for Legal Writing. Professor Otis has held a number of positions in the federal government: Chief of the Appellate Division, US Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia; Counselor to the Administrator, Drug Enforcement Administration; and Special Counsel to President George H. W. Bush. He has written several op-ed pieces on criminal law for USA Today, Forbes, the Washington Post, and US News & World Report; has been interviewed and quoted by the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal; has testified as an expert witness before Congress; has appeared on various network programs such as MSNBC’s Hardball, the O’Reilly Factor, Sixty Minutes and the PBS News Hour; and is a contributor to the blogs Crime and Consequences and Powerline.

In The News

November 25, 2020

"Five myths about criminal justice," coverage in The Washington Post, November 25, 2020, featuring Adjunct Professor William G. Otis.

January 7, 2019

"Beware of the Backlash Against Reform Prosecutors," coverage by The Crime Report, January 7, 2019, quoting Adjunct Professor William Otis.

May 7, 2018

"The Man Who Hates Criminal-Justice Reform," coverage by The New Republic, May 7, 2018, featuring Adjunct Professor Bill Otis.

April 25, 2018

"A Troubling Nomination to the U.S. Sentencing Commission," coverage in the Cato at Liberty, April 25, 2018, featuring Adjunct Professor William G. Otis.