Class: 1963
Major: Government
Deceased: August 27, 2009
Alumni survivors: Mr. Chase E. Sanders ’14 (Grandchild)
A remembrance by Bud Eugster
I met Pete during our freshman year at Carleton when our group from fourth Davis formed a larger group to live off campus at Richardson House our sophomore year. He was a great addition to that group and that year was the beginning of a long friendship.
Pete was an accomplished attorney having graduated from law school at Stanford and practiced in Phoenix. Among his major accomplishments as a litigator was as one of two attorneys arguing successfully the Miranda vs. Arizona case before the U.S. Supreme Court, setting the precedent for the “Miranda rights” today. He also had a major involvement in the Exxon Valdez oil spill case in Alaska.
After Carleton, Pete found a love for magic and Illusion. He worked tirelessly putting on shows for the benefit of numerous cancer societies after his mother’s cancer death. Many of you will remember the great show that he put on for us at our 35th reunion.
Pete was also an author of some accomplishment, writing books as well as several articles and essays for the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times Magazine, and Newsweek, among others.
When I started my cardiology practice in Spokane, I met Pete’s father, who was an internist in Moscow, Idaho. This meeting brought Pete and me closer together later in life and we visited on occasion with him and Susanne at their home in Phoenix.
Pete died in August of 2009 and will be greatly missed. He was a good and very accomplished individual.
Comments
I met Peter freshman year, as one of those fourth Davis guys. Junior year we were room mates in Burton, though Peter disappeared into Washington DC for part of that year. After graduation we both ended up at Stanford, he in law school and me in the geology program. We were both too busy to find time for significant socializing there, but we reconnected later when my job took me to Flagstaff, AZ. Peter was a well known attorney in Phoenix. He also had a house in Flagstaff. We reconnected there and among other topics we shared our experiences as authors on topics outside our trained specialties. Peter was an extrememly talented person, and in some sense of the phrase "bigger than life". It's so sad that he is no longer with us.