Oliver Winston Wanger (born November 27, 1940) is a former United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of California.

Education and early career

Born in Los Angeles, California, Wanger received a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Southern California in 1963. From 1960 to 1967 he was a United States Marine Corps Reserve Sergeant. Wanger completed a Bachelor of Laws from the University of California, Berkeley, Boalt Hall School of Law in 1966. He served as a deputy

district attorney In the United States, a district attorney (DA), county attorney, state's attorney, prosecuting attorney, commonwealth's attorney, or state attorney is the chief prosecutor and/or chief law enforcement officer representing a U.S. state in a l ...

of Fresno County from 1967 to 1969, and an

adjunct professor An adjunct professor is a type of academic appointment in higher education who does not work at the establishment full-time. The terms of this appointment and the job security of the tenure vary in different parts of the world, however the genera ...

Humphreys College Laurence Drivon School of Law Humphreys College Laurence Drivon School of Law is an independent, nonprofit law school located in Stockton, California. The School of Law is approved by the Committee of Bar Examiners of the State Bar of California and the Western Association o ...

from 1968 to 1969.

San Joaquin College of Law

In 1969, Wanger joined Fresno County Municipal Court Judge Dan Eymann and attorney John Loomis to found

San Joaquin College of Law San Joaquin College of Law (SJCL) is a private law school in Clovis, California. History SJCL was founded in Fresno in 1969 by Fresno County Municipal Court Judge Dan Eymann, U.S. District Court Judge Oliver Wanger, and attorney John Loomis. T ...

(SJCL) in Fresno, California. Wanger served as an adjunct professor at SJCL from 1970 to 1991 and served as Dean from 1980 to 1983.

Legal career

Wanger was City Attorney for Mendota, California from 1975 to 1980. He was a Judge Pro Tem, Superior Court of California, County of Fresno in 1988. He was a Pro tem settlement conference judge, Superior Court of California, County of Fresno in 1989. He was a United States District Judge of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of California. Wanger was nominated by President

George H. W. Bush George Herbert Walker BushSince around 2000, he has been usually called George H. W. Bush, Bush Senior, Bush 41 or Bush the Elder to distinguish him from his eldest son, George W. Bush, who served as the 43rd president from 2001 to 2009; pr ...

on January 8, 1991, to a seat vacated by Judge

Milton Lewis Schwartz Milton Lewis Schwartz (January 20, 1920 – October 3, 2005) was a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of California. Education and career Born in Oakland, California, Schwartz received an ...

. He was confirmed by the United States Senate on March 21, 1991, and received his commission on March 25, 1991. He assumed senior status on May 31, 2006. Sitting in Fresno, Judge Wanger became known as the chief arbiter of California's water wars. The highly technical scientific disputes Wanger was forced to resolve would require him to rely on his own appointed expert witnesses and often to issue rulings that were hundreds of pages long. During the bitterly contested

delta smelt The delta smelt (''Hypomesus transpacificus'') is an endangered slender-bodied smelt, about long, in the family Osmeridae. Non-Indigenous to the upper Sacramento-San Joaquin Estuary of California, it mainly inhabits the freshwater-saltwater mix ...

case, Judge Wanger drew national attention when he lengthily ridiculed a testifying government scientist for being a "zealot". In September 2011 he announced that he would retire on September 30, 2011. When stepping off the bench Judge Wanger observed that his time of service had left him with few friends.

References

External links

FJC Bio
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wanger, Oliver Winston 1940 births Living people California state court judges Judges of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of California Humphreys College Laurence Drivon School of Law faculty San Joaquin College of Law faculty United States Marine Corps reservists United States district court judges appointed by George H. W. Bush 20th-century American judges University of Southern California alumni UC Berkeley School of Law alumni