Ray J. Coleman ’30 (BA ’28) of San Marcos, Calif., died on May 19, 2003, at the age of 96.
Leo T. Englert ’42 of Incline Village, Nev., died on August 23, 2003, at the age of 87.
Stuart Kadison ’48 of Los Angeles, Calif., died October 22, 2003, at the age of 79. A former Herman Phleger Visiting Professor of Law at Stanford University, he served as president of the Los Angeles Bar Association and was also a governor of the State Bar of California as well as a former partner of Sidley Austin Brown & Wood. His involvement with Stanford also included his role on the executive committee of the Friends of the Stanford Law Library. His dedication to the community extended beyond the legal field, as president of the Friends of the Huntington Library from 1983 to 1985 and a trustee of the Santa Barbara Museum of Art. He is survived by his wife, Carita; daughter, Dana; son, Brian; and brother, Ellis.
William W. Saunders ’48 (BA ’42) of Honolulu, Hawaii, died November 2, 2003, at the age of 82. He was not only an active lawyer but an accomplished businessman as well, having a role in founding National Golf Courses Inc. and as cofounder and charter president of the National Association of Public Courses (now the National Golf Course Owners Association). His leadership also included being president of the Oahu Country Club and in-house counsel, officer, and director of Hotel Corp. of the Pacific (now Aston Hotels and Resorts). He is survived by his wife, Trudy; son, William Jr.; daughters, Diana Gail and Elizabeth Anne; and six grandchildren.
Robert W. Elliott ’49 (BA ’43) of Ross, Calif., died on August 18, 2003, at the age of 81. After receiving his bachelor’s degree from Stanford, he served with the United States Navy for three and a half years. He returned to Stanford for his law degree following his service and married Barbara Lowe in 1949. An active member of the Marin County community, he practiced law there for 40 years, as well as serving as attorney for the Marin Municipal Water District and as town attorney for two cities in the county. He married Joan Wonder Rice following the passing of his first wife in 1987. In addition to his wife, he is survived by daughters, Ann Grube and Sarah Finkenstaedt; sons, Douglas and Bruce; and 14 grandchildren.
Stanton M. Levy ’49 of Fresno, Calif., died on August 30, 2003, at the age of 81. After graduating from Stanford, he worked for three years in the Fresno County district attorney’s office before starting his private practice, which he continued until last year. He also served as a state inheritance tax appraiser. He is survived by his wife, Patricia Romano Levy; three children; and two grandchildren.
William C. Stover ’49 (BA ’46) of Fort Collins, Colo., died October 26, 2003, at the age of 83. He served in the Army during World War II, holding ranks from private to first lieutenant. He practiced law in Fort Collins for more than 40 years, and his strong commitment to the legal field included serving as president of the Larimer County Bar Association, chairman of the Colorado Bar Association Ethics Committee, and chairman of the association’s Real Estate Committee. He is survived by his wife, Frances; daughters, Susan and Barbara; son, William; stepdaughter, Karen; and six grandchildren, three step-grandchildren, and one great-grandchild.
James D. Loebl ’52 of Ojai, Calif., died October 19, 2003, at the age of 76. An undergraduate alumnus of Princeton University, he was known for his larger-than-life character and his dedication to his family and to his community. He served on the Ojai City Council from 1968 to 1996, including four terms as mayor. His extensive community involvement also included ten years on the board of the Ventura County Medical Resource Foundation, raising funds for the county’s public hospital. He served a term as president of the Ventura County Bar Association and was the recipient of the Ben E. Nordman Public Service Award in 1996. He is survived by his wife, Dorothy; children, Ellen, Jeffrey, and Susan; four grandchildren; and sister, Nancy Zuraw.
Keith G. Wadsworth ’54 of Los Altos Hills, Calif., died September 3, 2003, at the age of 76.
Vivian Chaya Hannawalt ’55 of San Francisco, Calif., died October 21, 2003, at the age of 72 of cancer. An undergraduate alumna of the University of Chicago, she later went on to earn a master’s degree in public administration and was one of the few women to graduate from Stanford Law School and pass the bar in the 1950s. She worked as an in-house attorney for BART for 11 years and was remembered for the way she addressed complex issues and earned respect from all those around her. She was also actively involved in the community as a devoted library volunteer and self-published a few books about her family. She is survived by her husband, Willis; children, Nina, James, and Rachel; and brother, Dudley Chaya.
Dan E. Hedin ’56 of San Diego, Calif., died September 15, 2003, at the age of 78. An undergraduate alumnus of Duke University, he was raised in Mexico and served in World War II as well as the Korean War, in which he achieved the rank of captain in the Navy Reserve. He joined Higgs, Fletcher & Mack one year after graduating from law school and rose to managing partner over his four-decade legal career. He was also a member of the American College of Trial Attorneys and the American Board of Trial Advocates. Even after formally retiring in 1991, he continued serving in an administrative capacity with Higgs, Fletcher & Mack. He is survived by his wife, Nancy; daughter, Kirsten; and four grandchildren.
Paul L. Freese ’57 of Los Angeles, Calif., died October 11, 2003, at the age of 74. He was a managing partner at Kindel & Anderson and served as lead counsel for a group of family members in the Howard Hughes estate litigation. His son, Paul, credits him with inspiring him to help the dispossessed and question the politics that brought them there. He is survived by his wife, Mary, and son, Paul.
Andrew J. Krappman, Jr. ’58 (BA ’54) of Alhambra, Calif., died September 9, 2003, at the age of 70. A former Navy lieutenant, he was a successful attorney and businessman known for his integrity, generosity, and humor. His career accomplishments included his position as executive vice president and corporate counselor of the O.K. Earl Corporation. He is survived by his nine children and eleven grandchildren.
Paul G. Bower ’63 of Pacific Palisades, Calif., died December 31, 2003, at the age of 70. A distinguished litigation partner in the Los Angeles office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, he served in the Department of Justice in Washington, D.C., from 1967 to 1969 and on the staff of the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders. He was also a special assistant in the Department of Justice under Attorney General Ramsey Clark and president of the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles. A dedicated outdoorsman and environmentalist, he was on the board of directors of the Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund, now Earthjustice, and participated in several double century bike rides, riding 200 miles in a single day. He is survived by his wife, Elreen; daughters, Stephanie, Julienne, and Aimee; granddaughters, Sylvie and Simone; and sisters, Judith Henning and Miriam Goulding.
Gerald Z. Marer ’63 of Palo Alto, Calif., died September 30, 2003, at the age of 66 of intestinal cancer. Former president of the California Academy of Appellate Lawyers, he was remembered for achieving great success in his field despite battling multiple sclerosis for most of his life. In 1976, he gained national recognition for his role in the Tinsley desegregation suit against the state of California and ten school districts, eventually winning a settlement allowing students from East Palo Alto’s schools to attend schools in more affluent communities. He was chairman of the board of directors of the Sixth District Appellate Project and also lectured on appellate law for the Continuing Education of the Bar. He is survived by his brother, Alan; daughters, Laura and Beth; and grandchildren, Jason and Lauren.
LeRoy A. Broun IV ’69 (BA ’55) of Boise, Idaho, died July 21, 2003, at the age of 69. He was an avid photographer for the Stanford Daily during his undergraduate years, and served in the Air Force flying B-52s. Following legal practice in Fremont, Calif., he retrained in computer programming and worked for IBM for 12 years. He is survived by his former wife, Margaret Dalgliesh; daughters, Elizabeth Newbrough and Kimberly Maxey; son, Patrick; five grandchildren; and a brother.
FACULTY AND STAFF
John Hart Ely of Coconut Grove, Fla., former Stanford Law School Dean and influential constitutional law scholar, died October 25, 2003, at the age of 64 of cancer.
Ely served as the School’s ninth dean from 1982 to 1987. During his tenure, he enhanced the diversity of the Law School’s student body and faculty and developed clinical learning programs. He also worked with Tom McBride (see obituary following), then associate dean for administration, in creating a loan assistance program for students who choose public interest employment.
Ely was best known for his first of three books, Democracy and Distrust: A Theory of Judicial Review, which was published in 1980. The book, which won an Order of the Coif prize, discussed key problems in constitutional law and the role of the U.S. Supreme Court. It is the most frequently cited legal book published since 1978, according to the Journal of Legal Studies, and its popularity has made Ely the fourth most frequently cited legal scholar in history.
Ely was a liberal Democrat, but he took a middle-of-the-road position regarding interpretation of the Constitution in Democracy and Distrust. He argued that the Supreme Court’s primary concern was to guarantee that U.S. democracy remain open and fair. He rejected the idea that the Constitution should be interpreted merely from its text and its history, maintaining that the document’s language was openended. But he also dismissed the argument that judges might infer moral values from the Constitution. This position drew criticism from both ends of the political spectrum: conservatives complained that his interpretation allows judges to impose their ideas over voters’ wishes, while liberals argued that it fails to protect what they believed were fundamental rights, including the right to privacy.
In a similar vein, Ely supported abortion rights but believed that the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision was not based on constitutional law. He criticized the decision in a 1973 article in the Yale Law Journal, saying that it was “frightening,” given that the decision could not be inferred from the Constitution’s language.
In his book, Ely was especially concerned about minority access to the political process, emphasizing voting rights, anti-discrimination laws, and free speech.
Ely wrote two more books, War and Responsibility (1993) and On Constitutional Ground (1996), as well as dozens of articles in which he discussed such explosive issues as abortion, flag desecration, and affirmative action.
Born in New York, Ely graduated from Princeton University in 1960 and earned his degree from Yale Law School in 1963. As a law student, he spent a summer working for a Washington, D.C., law firm, Arnold, Fortas & Porter, where he assisted Abe Fortas, who would later become a Supreme Court Justice, in Gideon v. Wainwright. Ely drafted a brief on behalf of Clarence Gideon, a drifter from Florida who had broken into a poolroom and was tried and convicted without an attorney. The brief eventually provided the basis for a 1963 Supreme Court decision that the government should provide legal representation for people who are accused of crimes and cannot afford to hire lawyers.
After graduation, Ely served on the Warren Commission, which investigated President John F. Kennedy’s assassination and concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald was the only shooter. When he finished clerking for Chief Justice Earl Warren, Ely attended the London School of Economics as a Fulbright scholar.
Ely then moved to San Diego to work as a criminal defense attorney, and in 1968 joined Yale’s law school faculty. In 1973, he accepted a teaching position at Harvard, leaving academia for a year in 1975 to serve as general counsel of the Department of Transportation, and in 1982 moved to Stanford to become dean.
During Ely’s deanship, the Law School grew significantly more diverse: the number of entering female students rose from 55 to 78 and entering minorities from 19 to 38. Professors Miguel Méndez and Deborah Rhode, among others, were awarded tenure, and former professor Charles Lawrence was hired. Opportunities for students interested in public service also expanded: during Ely’s tenure, the School received a $300,000 endowment for loans to students working in summer public internships.
After Ely finished his deanship, he continued to teach at the Law School, but in 1996 he left for Florida to join the faculty of the University of Miami School of Law, where he taught a course on the shooting of President Kennedy. When the U.S. bombing of Yugoslavia started in 1999, Ely helped then Congressman and Law School professor Tom Campbell try to ensure that the United States would never again go to war without the approval of Congress. In 2003, Ely received an honorary doctorate from Yale University for excellence in constitutional scholarship. He remained on the University of Miami faculty until his death.
Ely’s life interests transcended the law. He liked to jog through the Stanford campus, play the piano, and compose nonsensical vaudeville tunes. He moved to Miami in part to pursue his love of scuba diving.
Ely is survived by his wife of one year, Circuit Court Judge Gisela Cardonne Ely; two sons, Robert and John; and two granddaughters. [See also p. 12.]
Thomas McBride of Portland, Ore., former Associate Dean for Administration at the Law School, died October 31, 2003, at the age of 74 of a cerebral hemorrhage. He was a Watergate prosecutor and the first inspector general of the Department of Agriculture.
McBride served as Associate Dean from 1982 to 1989, during which time he implemented a loan repayment assistance program for public interest law students.
A native of Elgin, Ill., McBride earned his bachelor’s degree from New York University in 1952 and a law degree from Columbia in 1956. He later moved to Washington, D.C., to work as a trial lawyer for the Organized Crime Task Force established by Attorney General Robert Kennedy. After Kennedy was assassinated, McBride joined the Peace Corps as country director of the Dominican Republic and Panama and then as deputy director for Latin America. He held several high-level government and nonprofit positions in Washington, D.C., and in 1973 was appointed associate prosecutor in the Watergate prosecutor’s office. McBride led a task force investigating campaign contributions and the selling of ambassadorships. He was responsible for accepting guilty pleas from such officials as New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner and Maurice Stans, the chief fundraiser for Nixon’s reelection campaign.
In 1973, McBride was at home eating dinner when he heard on the television that President Richard M. Nixon had abolished the special Watergate prosecutor’s office in a move known as the Saturday Night Massacre. He raced to the office to rescue important files he feared would be destroyed. After Watergate, McBride was appointed as the first Inspector General for the Department of Agriculture and then at the Department of Labor and was considered the “dean” of the federal inspector generals, testifying numerous times before Congress.
During his time at Stanford, McBride served on the President’s Commission on Organized Crime and the California Council on Mental Health. He left the Law School to head Stanford’s Department of Environmental Health and Safety after the Loma Prieta earthquake of 1989.
In 1992, McBride moved back to Washington, D.C., to join his wife, Catherine Milton, who was heading the Commission on National and Community Service and then AmeriCorps. During that period, he worked as a special counselor at the Department of Energy on the cleanup and closing of nuclear weapons sites. In 1997, he became special assistant to the president of Save the Children and traveled worldwide to help improve the sponsorship program.
In 2002, McBride and Milton moved to Portland. It was in that city’s Laurelhurst Park that McBride suffered a fall which led to the hemorrhage. He had planned to attend, the day after the fall, a Washington, D.C., event observing the 30th anniversary of the Saturday Night Massacre.
Besides his wife, McBride is survived by four children, Elizabeth, John, Raphael, and Luke; a sister, Nancy; and a brother, Donald.