Judiciary

the "private attorney general" doctrine...allows a prevailing party to recover fees and costs....

Fuchs claims that Judge Ayabe's wife did legal work for three of Fuchs's adversaries in the foreclosure case....

Watson will be the only Native Hawaiian serving as an Article III judge ....

...the case seemed like a good vehicle for the U.S. Supreme Court to revisit the pretext-in-eminent-domain issue it teased us with in Kelo....

"Can it be that the idiots who evidently run the Hawaii Business magazine have never heard about the principle that statutes have to be constitutional?"

Scott Bullock, the Institute for Justice lawyer who argued Kelo will be speaking next Monday at the University of Hawaii School of Law ....

...the environmental lawyers upped the ante by calling Callies a liar and a sell-out....

...it was noted that no one in that van had leg shackles on....

...the court's environmental jurisprudence wasn't so much focused on outcome, but rather on process....

...Recktenwald delivered his biennial State of the Judiciary address on the Judiciary’s new YouTube channel....

The oral argument calendar of the Hawaii Supreme Court  looks pretty interesting.... 

...the good professor labeled the record of the 1993-2010 Hawaii Supreme Court on property issues "appalling," so it should come as no surprise that two of the beneficiaries of those rulings have now rallied to that court's defense....

The Hawaii Supreme Court has accepted certiorari and agreed to review the Intermediate Court of Appeals' unpublished memorandum opinion in Diamond v. Dobbin....

NFIB, CATO Instiutute, Owners' Counsel of America, and lawprofs James Ely, David Callies, Todd Zywicki, Randy Barnett, Eric Claeys, and D. Benjamin Barros -- have filed an amicus brief ....

Intermediate Court of Appeals held that the Hawaii Senate's failure to confirm a sitting Land Use Commissioner for a second term did not disqualify him from office ....

In 2009, in the "Superferry" case, the Hawaii Supreme Court, after years of hinting (but not finding a suitable vehicle), formally adopted the "private attorney general' doctrine ....

The interim appointment fills a new seat in compliance with Act 139 of the 2012 Legislature, which increased Hawaii Paroling Authority members from three to five.

Judge Ochiai, 57, will fill a vacancy left by Judge Richard Pollack, who became Associate Justice of the Hawaii Supreme Court....

Chief Justice Mark E. Recktenwald today appointed Kevin A. Souza to the District Family Court of the First Circuit (Oahu). 

• Blake v. County of Kauai Planning Comm'n,
• Kanahele v. Maui County Council

...the Hawaii Supreme Court "has managed to find in favor of Sierra Club, Friends of the Earth, Earthjustice ... 90% of the time, 70% of those decisions overturning the [Hawaii] Intermediate Court of Appeals....

How could federal prosecutors “accidentally” debase their entire prosecution of crimes alleged to have occurred in 2004 by telling a Federal Grand Jury that the defendants’ collection of “recruitment fees” was a violation of a law which did not take effect until 2008?

"...because of an unresolved situation with my law firm, I have decided to withdraw my nomination to prevent any distraction for the Abercrombie Administration and disruption for my family.”

According to 2009 YRBS (Youth Risk Behavior Survey) data, Hawai‘i high school students had the highest self-reported prevalence of considering suicide (19%), the highest for making a plan (16%), the highest for attempting (13%), and the 4th highest prevalence for being treated for a self-inflicted injury (4.5%) in the country. 

Democrat legislators making up excuses to block Lingle’s judicial nominees are usually just doing the bidding of the criminal defense bar—which seeks to block judicial nominees who are not sufficiently soft on crime.   But it appears that opposition to the nomination of former Federal Prosecutor Ed Kubo to Oahu's First Circuit Court is coming from former State Sherriff John Souza.  Souza, the husband of State Senate President Coleen Hanabusa, was nailed in 2004 for a land sale which involved giving a $25,000 loan to an accused meth dealer who is a cousin to two convicted Pali Golf course shooters.

As a practicing attorney, Nacino had the opportunity to prepare appellate briefs to the Hawai‘i Supreme Court, Hawai‘i Intermediate Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and the United States Supreme Court.... He worked for two-and-a-half years at the Prosecuting Attorney’s Office where he tried jury and non-jury cases involving misdemeanor and felonies at the District, Family and Circuit Court levels.... Before beginning his legal career, Nacino was a police officer with the Honolulu Police Department for approximately eight-and-a-half years.

Last year, instead of enacting a law stating that the Supreme Court was wrong, the Legislature adopted special legislation exempting the Superferry pending completion of an environmental impact statement. The Supreme Court’s recent decision correctly struck down that exemption as violating the Hawaii constitutional prohibition against legislative special treatment for special interests.

The governor and Legislature were then handed a second opportunity to make the law pono by saying what everyone believed. The Legislature could enact simple language, such as the following which I recommended to the legislative leadership in March 2009, making clear that our environmental laws do not extend to "secondary" impacts:

"Significant effect" does not include or require consideration of “secondary impacts” on the environment that may result from government action. This latter provision is retroactive to enactment of this chapter.

By doing so, the law would state what everyone always believed it meant and the Superferry would have been allowed to continue providing essential transportation to Hawaii's citizens and competition to interisland airlines.

A decrease in the Hawaii State Judiciary's budget could result in a narrowing of services and a return to the Judiciary's original mission: To decide what is right and wrong in accordance with the law, Moon said.