Hon. Peter J Eckerstrom
Arizona Court of Appeals, Division Two
Honorable Peter J. Eckerstrom was born in St. James, Minnesota, but Arizona has been his home since the age of three. He graduated from Yale University in 1982 (Magna Cum Laude) with a BA. He received his JD from Stanford University in 1986 (with Distinction) and a Master of Judicial Studies from Duke Law in 2018. He acts as a “Professor of Practice” at the University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law, where he periodically teaches a course on the American death penalty.
Judge Eckerstrom was appointed to the Arizona Court of Appeals, Division Two, by Governor Janet Napolitano in 2003. In July 2014, he became the court’s chief judge, a position he held until July 2019. He has served on the Commission on Court Technology, the Commission on Judicial Performance Review, the Commission on Minorities in the Judiciary, the Commission on Judicial Conduct, and the Arizona Judicial Council.
Before taking the bench, he served as a Pima County Public Defender and later in private practice with an emphasis on capital litigation.
He is a resident of Tucson, Arizona and has a son, Lars. Judge Eckerstrom’s interests have included master’s water polo, fantasy baseball, watching his son play basketball, and bird watching.
