Fred Palmer

Fred Palmer passed on December 4th, 2024 after a long battle with kidney cancer. Fred was born to Fred C and Margaret Palmer on August 8, 1946 in Yakima, WA. Fred was the middle child of two sisters, Patricia and Nancy Palmer.

Raised in Yakima, he attended Eisenhower High School. Fred loved to complete and was an outstanding athlete at Eisenhower, where he was awarded 2 letters in both varsity baseball and football. In football, he was co-captain in his senior year. Preferring to ski, he abstained from basketball and spent many weekends bussing to White Pass ski area during the winter.

 After graduating, Fred attended University of Washington from which he graduated after 4 years in 1968. He was an active member of the Beta Theta Pi Fraternity for his first 2 years. Fearing the draft, he enrolled in ROTC in his Junior year but, due to medical deferment, he was discharged from OTC and deferred from military service in 1968.

 With college and the military behind him, single and with no obligations or desire to settle down, after graduating from UW Fred embarked on a 2-year adventure, partying and working in South Lake Tahoe, Sun Valley and Waikiki. Unable to find a lifestyle or community in which he felt like pursuing a career, he sailed back to the mainland on a returning Trans-Pac race sailboat and enrolled in Gonzaga Law School. He was not particularly enamored with a career as a lawyer, but he was attracted to being self-employed and financially mobile.

 While attending Gonzaga, Fred was introduced to the world of criminal defense while working as an intern at the Spokane County Public Defenders’ office. He found this to be a formative experience. He worked closely with fellow intern, Tom Hillier, who became a lifetime friend. He was drawn to jury trials and search and seizure suppression and developed a passion for both. This was introduction into what would become a successful career in criminal defense and personal injury.

In 1972 he met his future wife, Barbara Johnson from Spokane, at a Liberty Lake party. After his graduation, Fred and Barbara moved to a small ranch near Snohomish, WA with two couples from law school which they dubbed their hippie commune. They were married at the “commune” in an open hay field in 1975. Fred introduced Barbara to skiing with a low budget tour of major ski resorts, including Sun Valley, Whitefish, Vail, and Steamboat Springs. Fortunately, she enjoyed skiing. They decided to settle in a community with a lake and ski area. After a winter in Whitefish and traveling through prospective towns in Chelan, WA and McCall, ID they moved to Sandpoint in 1976.

 Barbara found work at the front office of Sandpoint High school and Fred hung out his Attorney shingle in downtown Sandpoint. Shortly thereafter he was hired by Tom Cook and Nick Lamana, a Priest River Partnership, to assist with their Public Defender contract with Bonner County. After several successful felony and misdemeanor jury trials, Fred decided to enter the fray as a private trial attorney. In 1980 he purchased the practice of Phil Robinson, who took over as the Bonner County Prosecutor. With Barbara having retired, on October 20th, 1980 Fred and Barbara welcomed their first child, Ben, into the world. Their daughter, Whitney, followed on August 5, 1984. These are their only children.

 Fred continued as a solo practitioner for the remainder of his career. He retired in January 2021. For approximately the last 20 years of his practice, Fred and attorney Ted Diehl owned and practiced together out of their building located at 201 S. Superior St. He will be remembered for his achievements in law. In his personal injury practice, he recovered a wrongful death of a minor verdict which set a record at the time in Idaho. In criminal law, which was the focus of much of his career, he established legal precedents in Idaho’s test for mental competency in a murder trial and multiple warrant less search and seizure issues. He was a founding member of the Idaho Attorneys for Criminal Defense Bord of directors and a member of the Federal Bord of the Criminal Defender’s Association for Eastern WA and Idaho for 20 years.

 Fred loved sports and, with Barbara, endeavored to involve his children in multiple sports from an early age including basketball, swimming, alpine skiing and golf. He and Barbara believed in opening their children up to the world trough travel, going together to Costa Rica, Scotland/Ireland and Maui, along with several regional vacations and ski trips.

He could be found golfing throughout the summer with his well-developed group of close friends. When weather would not permit, this group moved to playing table shuffleboard. Fred started his addiction to this fame in a bar in college. He introduced his friends to the game overtime culminating with his purchase of her personal board now open for public play, located upstairs at Eichardt’s Pub and Grill in Sandpoint.