Wesley Oliver is an Associate Professor of Law at Widener's Harrisburg campus. Professor Oliver received his B.A. and J.D. from the University of Virginia, an LL.M. from Yale Law School and is presently a candidate for the J.S.D. degree from Yale. At Widener, Professor Oliver teaches courses on constitutional law, criminal law and criminal procedure. He has previously served on the faculties of the Tulane Law School, the University of Maine School of Law, the McGill University Faculty of Law in Montreal, Canada and the Harvard Law School where he taught criminal law with Professor Alan Dershowitz. Prior to entering academia, he was a member of the firm Edwards, Simmons & Oliver in Nashville, Tennessee, primarily handling criminal appeals. As a practicing lawyer and an academic, Professor Oliver has frequently represented the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and the Association of Federal Defenders as amicus curiae in matters before the United States Supreme Court. Professor Oliver writes in the areas of criminal law, criminal procedure, constitutional law, and legal history.
Constitutional Law
The Neglected History of Criminal Procedure, 1850-1940, ExpressO (2009)
Originalism has focused the attention of courts and academics on Framing Era history to interpret...
Editorial, Here’s Why I Was a Campaign Volunteer, Patriot News (Harrisburg, PA) (2008)
Editorial, How Iowa Does It: Caucusing, Unlike Voting Takes Time—Some Caucuses Continue for Hours, Patriot News (Harrisburg, PA) (2007)
Editorial, Iowans are Serious About Caucus Process, Patriot News (Harrisburg, PA) (2007)
Editorial, Recordings Can Protect Those Secretly Taped, Patriot News (Harrisburg, PA) (2007)
Criminal Law and Procedure
The Neglected History of Criminal Procedure, 1850-1940, ExpressO (2009)
Originalism has focused the attention of courts and academics on Framing Era history to interpret...
Portland, Prohibition and Probable Cause: Maine's Role in Shaping Modern Criminal Procedure, Maine Bar Journal (2008)
At the time the Constitution was written, police officers had very little power. In most...
Editorial, Rulings Lose Track of Innocent, Patriot News (Harrisburg, PA) (2007)
Magistrates’ Examinations, Police Interrogations, and Miranda—Like Warnings in the Nineteenth Century, Tulane Law Review (2007)
The New York legislature in the early-nineteenth century began to require interrogators to warn suspects...
The Rise and Fall of Material Witness Detention in Nineteenth Century New York, New York University Journal of Law and Liberty (2005)
Legal History
The Neglected History of Criminal Procedure, 1850-1940, ExpressO (2009)
Originalism has focused the attention of courts and academics on Framing Era history to interpret...