Senate Standing Committee on Judiciary

Good morning everyone, and welcome to the Judiciary Committee hearing. It really is a Committee. It's not just me. The other Members are. Well, I'm looking at my own schedule and I have 12345678 other conference committees that overlap with this.

So assuming that's where everybody is, so please don't take offense, they'll be here to vote on Thursday. So we're not voting today on any of these nominations. The vote will be on Thursday. I think it's 9:15-10:00am on Thursday.

Okay, so first up and oh, if we have a catastrophic failure on the Zoom side, we will try again tomorrow at 8:45am in this same room. 225. It's not my normal room, so I have to think about what the number is. And 8:45 tomorrow, April 23rd. Hopefully that won't happen.

Okay, first up on the agenda today is Governor's message 788. Oops, that's not the right one. Sorry. My apologies. Governor's message 790. Guarantee Nakasone for consideration and confirmation of as Chief Judge of the State of Hawaii's Intermediate Court of Appeals. And that's for a term to expire in 10 years. First up on Judge Nakasone.

Okay.

Okay. Is the Honorable Joel Takuda for U.S. House of Representatives. And support Governor Green and support Haley Chung for the Assistant Public Good Assistant Defender in person on Zoom. Oh, there you are. Come on up. Good morning. Oh, and we do have a two minute time limit as most of you have testified here before are aware.

Go ahead.

Thank you. Good morning. Chair Rhoads and other members of the committee. I am here in very strong support of Judge Karen Nakasone to the seat of the Chief Judge of the ICA. I have submitted my letter, but I just wanted to convey I first met Judge Nakasone in 2007 when I was a brand new public defender.

I remember meeting Karen, who we called Karen at the time and just being so impressed with her poise, her intelligence, her knowledge, her approachability.

And she was truly one of these standout attorneys at our office and somebody who me, as a young female attorney looked up to, aspired to be like and always thought I hopefully can be like her one day. It is no surprise that she has been a successful Circuit Court judge and now an ICA judge.

She is absolutely suited for this role and just personally and professionally, she has my strongest support. So thank you for the opportunity to comment.

Thank you very much. Next is John Ikenaga for the Public Defender. Good morning.

Good morning. Chair Rhoads. Good morning, Senator Chang and absent members of the Committee, Judge Nakasone is an exceptional candidate for the position of judge of the ICA. I had the privilege of working with Judge Nakasone during her time at the Office of the Public Defender.

Good morning.

As an attorney, she was an amazing advocate, diligent, hard working, amazing legal knowledge. As a Circuit Court judge discontinued. She exhibited exemplary judicial temperament, issued well reasoned decisions and was well respected by all members of the bar who appeared before her.

In her role as a judge of the ica, Judge Nakasone has continued the high standards for legal knowledge and diligence that she established as an attorney and circuit court judge.

Judge Nakasone is fair, intelligent, well respected by her colleagues and Members of the bar and exceeds all the qualifications for personal and judicial integrity to serve as Chief Judge of the ICA. The OPD strongly supports her nom- her confirmation.

Thank you. Next is retired Intermediate Court of Appeals Judge Daniel Foley. [reads names of all those in support]. I want to say he was an AG too. Oh, here, here. Come on up. Good morning.

Morning, chair, members of the committee, my name is Bruce Nakamura. I filed some testimony, but thank you also for indulging my remarks.

Oh, I'm sorry. I had Howard Luke. Howard, K.K. Luke.

No. Bruce Nakamura.

Did I call your name? No, sorry. You're not. You'll have a chance. You'll have a chance. Let me go through the name. [reads names of all those in support].

I'm sorry, I'm not sure how to pronounce your name. Okay, Gonzalez. Okay. Good morning.

Hello. My name is Celeste Gonzalez. I'm a post day litigant. I am here testifying in support of Judge Nakasone. And I want I bring a different perspective because I'm actually a prose litigant who has had.

I still have cases in the ICA and my experience with when I receive any orders or information from this particular judge is nothing but kind. And there were a few times where I actually had to ask for instructions because maybe rules were not very clear on how I can correct mistakes.

And her tone in her response to me has been very kind, very just, very, very nice and I appreciated that. I do have some issues with the ICA, with some other members. So I'm very happy to support and hopefully have Judge Karen Nakasone become the new ICA Chief Judge. So thank you so much for your time.

Thank you. Next, I have Bruce Nakamura. Okay, there we go.

There I am.

Morning again.

Again, thank you for indulging my comments, members of the committee. I've been a practicing lawyer for 30 years. I've been with the same law firm in town here at Kobayashi, Sugita and Goda. I haven't had the all frankness.

I haven't had the privilege of sitting opposite council table for Judge Nakasone, nor have I ever appeared in front of Judge Nakasone. However, I have long experience with her and our relationship and friendship arose out of her community involvement.

We served together on the Stevenson Middle Robert Lewis Stevenson Middle School apt and both of our kids went to school there. I had been at Stevenson Middle before as a parent, before Karen and her gang came over from Manoa Elementary. And to be fair, it was a pretty ragtag piecemeal collection of parents.

We tried to organize, tried to fundraise a little. Sometimes we did, sometimes we didn't. And when Karen and her group came over from Manoa School, it was just like this huge rush of energy. And it was all led by Karen. She was the natural leader of our organization.

She really kind of cleared away the cobwebs of seeing what was there, what we were capable of being. She kind of charted a path for us. We followed her lead. We formalized all the organizational documents. We even got a 501C3 certification.

All through her vision, we thought she was crazy, you know, kind of setting these very, very lofty goals. But she was able to get everyone on board and we follow. So I think she's the person who puts her money where her mouth is. She's a great natural leader.

And I'm really, really relieved and happy that the powers of be have selected her to lead this most critical institution. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Next is Susan Arnett. Good morning.

Senator Chang. I just wanted to share with you the Karen Nakasone that I know that is not, I think, encompassed in my letter. In high school, she decided she wanted to go to Bryn Mawr, a very expensive, exclusive college on the mainland. And she didn't have the money to do it.

So she set about to figure out how to do it, which was to go to, UH initially and save money. And she got to Bryn Mawr and she graduated from Bryn Mawr. When she and Roman decided to have kids, she had a very difficult pregnancy with twins and was put on bed rest at seven months.

And I remember coming by her home to deliver documents to her from work so that she could continue to work during those two months. The babies were premature, and about roughly the same time they were born, she became President of the local chapter of the Japanese American Citizen League.

And JACL had been very involved with redress in the 90s, but was sort of in a bit of a limbo state in the early 2000s, deciding where else it was going to go. And under Karen's leadership, she reinvigorated the board with new blood, including me. Some of those people are still on the board, including me.

She got us involved in the first pilgrimage to Honuliuli, the largest internment camp on Oahu in Kunia. She got us involved in other crucial issues of the day, some of which were controversial even for JACL. She sent her children to public school, which I personally applaud and as you've heard, was very involved with as a parent.

Her girls did very well there. They're both in college on the mainland now and will graduate each of them next year.

When she decided she wanted to be a judge, she knew she didn't have civil experience, so she undertook for the years leading up to it to read every civil opinion so that if she were to get on the court, on the bench, she might not have experience, but she'd know the law.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Next is Jill Nakawa. Good morning.

Good morning. Jill Nakawa. I submitted in testimony. I just wanted to add a few things about leadership. We're well aware of what's happening in Washington, D.C. and the impact to every state of the nation. So leadership is critical right now. I mean, Karen has shown not just on the ICA as an associate judge, but all through JACL.

I don't really talk much about the exact reasons of her bravery because it seems like we have a chilling effect in this state also with regards to attacks with DEI and standing up for what's right. I'm very excited to have Karen Nakasone, potentially with your folks, confirmation, be chief Judge of the ICA.

I've known her since public defender time. And we need leadership at a time where it's a real threat to democracy. And the one thing that I can absolutely, without a doubt say is that Karen Nakasone is about liberty and freedom and the exercise of the law, the Constitution, and she is not a person that would waver.

And I remember, Senator Rhoads, when you asked Lisa Ginoza when she became on the Supreme Court, when. Whether, during a time that threatened all of this, whether she could stay the course.

And I'm here to say, not only can Lisa stay the course, but I'm utmost confident that Karen Nakasone can stay the course in a time that our democracy is the most threatened that we've ever experienced in our lifetime. So thank you.

Thank you very much.

That is, everyone who signed up to appear in person or on Zoom. Would anyone else like to testify on GM 790? Okay, so I will go now to. I'm sorry, that was not quite correct. That's everyone except for HSBA. So if HSBA would like. Okay. Yeah, come on up. Hang on just one second.

So I have an announcement of somebody's driver's license. Sandra Tanaka, it's your mom. Okay. All right, Mr. Murakami, go ahead.

Members of the committee. Mark Emirakami, President of the Hawaii State Bar Association. Judge Nakasone underwent the Hawaii State Bar Association's interview and review process, which was a very thorough due diligence upon her YesC application, her HSBA application. A committee of the board interviewed all of her references and conducted a very thorough interview with her yesterday.

And the board voted to provide testimony that she's qualified for the position that she's been nominated for.

Great. Thank you. Thank you very much. Let me just read the statistics. So there was 103 in support, zero opposed, with one comment. Senator Chang questions for any of these testifiers? Me neither. Let's. Judge Nakasone, if you don't mind. Coming up on me, if you'd like to make an opening statement.

Good morning. Before I begin, if I may briefly introduce members of my family and some of my colleagues who are present. My aunt Becky Nakasone is here. She is 90 years old. My husband, Roman Amagui. My mother, Chieko Nakasone. My sister, Nancy Tolentino is here.

And I want to also thank members of my extended family, and many of my cousins are here also. Thank you. All. I also want to recognize my colleagues who are here and if I'm just going to say their names and I'm going to ask them all to rise at the end.

Acting Chief Judge of the ICA, Kathryn Leonard. Associate Judge Keith Hiraoko. Associate Judge Clyde Wadsworth. Associate Judge Sonya McCullen and Associate Judge Kimberly Guidry. This is the entire ICA. If you all could please just stand here, please. Thank you. And I very much thank my colleagues for coming and for their support.

Thank you, Chair Rhoads and Senator Chang and for the members of the committee who took time to meet me and to discuss this appointment and my qualifications. 30 years ago, my first job out of law school was at the ICA. I was a law Clerk there for Simeon R. Acoba Jr., who later became a Supreme Court Justice.

My entire career has been dedicated to public service. 15 years at the Public Defender's office and I like to count my one year ICA clerkship. So I have almost 15 years with the judiciary. So half of my 30 year career has been as an advocate and almost half of it has been working with the judiciary.

The ICA is a high volume frontline appeals court. We decide almost all appeals statewide, including those from state agencies. The Chief Judge must maintain laser focus on timely disposition of appeals. It requires leadership that is responsive, flexible and collaborative. We are a multi Member court. We are supposed to have seven judges total.

Right now we're operating with a team of six. Our total team at the ica, if we're full staff and considering all our staff attorneys and all the staff of the various Chambers is 36. In January of 2024, we lost our Chief Judge because she was elevated to the Hawaii Supreme Court, Lisa Genoza.

So at that time we became shorthanded. One judge and her chambers and we also wore short two staff attorneys. We have a six person strong Staff Attorney team. The backlog at that time in January 2024 was already terrible and we feared that it might worsen because we were so short.

However, under the leadership of our Acting Chief Judge, Katherine Leonard, she brings with her this year makes 17 years of serving on the ICA. Under our rules, leadership falls to the most senior judge when there is no sitting Chief judge. So Acting Chief Judge Leonard did an all systems review.

She came up with ideas to improve efficiency and productivity so that we would not fall further behind and hopefully pull forward with our backlog. So she met with all of us and we brainstormed and agreed to try out a series of pilot reforms aimed at not falling further behind. And hopefully making a dent in the backlog.

From February 2024, when we started our pilot reforms, to the current time, it's now been approximately a 14 month period. The number of appeals over two years since assignment, that number has always been historically above 250. When January 2024, when we lost our Chief Judge, that number was up to 270.

With the pilot reforms, that number from 270 over this 14 month period has gradually dropped steadily. And as of last month's statistics, we're at 48.

To put the pilot reforms in a nutshell, it is a true team effort where all of the judges of the ICA, we have agreed to be as concise as possible in our dispositions without sacrificing accuracy or clarity. And we try to also work on the priority cases and the oldest cases first.

So last year we unfortunately did have some 2020 appeals still lying around. So we made sure we got to those first. Then we cleared out the 2021 appeals, working all together and just maintaining laser focus on the oldest cases first, we're able to clear out the 2021 appeals.

This year we hit the 2022 appeals and we are set to clear those well before the end of the year. Right. But it really has been a true team effort in our ability to work together to achieve this dramatic turnaround in our backlog.

And if I am confirmed Chief Judge, I am excited and inspired by what we have done so far, and I intend to continue that effort to further reduce the backlog so that litigants and parties do not have to wait an inordinate length of time for their case to be resolved by the Intermediate Court of Appeals.

While I have not served in judiciary administrative leadership before, I do have the full support of my colleagues at the ICA. And I will need and draw upon their support as I take on this Chief Judge role. If confirmed, I also bring nine years of leadership as a trial judge.

Being a trial judge requires leadership in the courtroom. You have to manage your calendar. You have to manage the courtroom proceedings so that they run smoothly and that people are not waiting too long to have their cases heard. You have to manage the parties, the attorneys, the juries.

And in criminal court, you have more court personnel that also have to be managed, such as probation officers, court interpreters, court reporters for hearings and trials, and the sheriffs. So there's a lot of coordination that goes on when you're a criminal trial judge.

I honed my leadership skills during many difficult trials, presiding over many civil and criminal trials in the trial courts.

Getting a legally complicated and logistically challenging lengthy jury trial over the finish line takes a lot of coordination and getting people to work together, especially in terms of scheduling and coordinating all the parties and communicating with the jurors to make sure everybody knows what's going to happen every day.

So I bring nine years of leadership skills from the trial courts to the ICA Chief Judge position. I also have extensive community leadership experience. I served in diverse legal community boards, commission and various committees. I have served in many civic and cultural organizations as both the leader and a team member.

All of these experiences have taught me how to lead, to serve, to communicate, and to connect with all different kinds of people. The values that I would bring to leadership as Chief Judge of the ICA are the values that I learned from my parents and my grandparents.

I grew up in a multi generational household in Liliho with my parents and my grandparents. My late father, Hajime Nakasone was a was born and raised on Kekaha Plantation. And my mother, Chieko Nakasone, who is here today, she is an immigrant from Okinawa, Japan. My parents, I'm going to call them plantation values and immigrant values.

These are the vows that I learned from living with my parents and grandparents of honesty, humility, hard work and sacrifice. I'm also the child of a small business family from my 10th grade year in 1990. 1985. No, I'm sorry, 1985. 1985. Okay, that's, that's, that's why we're.

Yeah, I was not actually I was on this high school math team, but. And I know Senator San Buenaventura is a math major. So from 1985 to 2004, for 19 years, my mother ran a small business, a flower shop in downtown Honolulu.

She did this so that she could better support our family and hopefully earn money to send me to college. Because I really wanted to go away. And at the time, in the first years of the business, we were struggling so we could not afford to send me away.

My mother works from 7am to 7pm so seven days a week for 19 years, 364 days a year. She only took New Year's Day off. So I learned my work ethic from the family business. That helped put me through college and law school as at the expensive East Coast schools that I attended.

My late father, Hajime Nakasone was a. He was an employee at the can plant in Iwile. The DOE cannery. He called it Can Plant. He was there for 34 years. He was a tool and die maker in 1962 when he started, he became a supervisor at the can plan. He then became a Superintendent.

And he was the last employee at the CAN plant. When the plant closed in 1996, he would say that he was the guy who closed down the plant, put the gate and put the lock on. He also was one of two mechanics who was trained to fix the Janako pineapple machine.

So when growing up, that's growing up in the 70s, that's when we still had landlines, the workers would call, you know, even late at night and just say, tell your father the machine broke in. Can you come down? So my father would go down and fix the machine.

After we opened our family business, my father kind of worked two jobs. During his lunch break, he would help my mom do flower pickups from the wholesalers or he would do flower deliveries. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, thank you.

This actually might be. I'm sorry to stop you mid. I have to go vote. So. Okay. Let me continue as acting chair for a few minutes. Sure, that's fine. Okay, come on up and start asking questions.

Absolutely. Okay, go ahead. Please proceed.

All right, thank you. So, yeah, so my dad. And then after he finished work at 3:30, he would be at the flower shop helping with deliveries and things like that up till about 6:30pm they would close up and then they would go home around 7:00.

It is only because of my family's sacrifice that I was able to obtain my education. And I'm sitting here today, the family business, all those years working there, I worked there in high school, after school, I worked there during college, even as a young lawyer. And my sister is a social worker. She now works for the judiciary.

Both of us as young professionals, we would be taking vacation from our day jobs to help out at the flower shop during busy seasons. So Valentine's Day was a big one. Administrative Professionals Day, Mother's Day, New Year's Day was big for us. All those times we would take vacation and work at the family florist.

In 2004, when my twins were born, my parents retired. And they retired because I needed a babysitter. I would not be here today. I would not have been able to continue working full time, develop my skills as a lawyer and stay in the profession full time. And also to continue volunteering with various organizations that I love doing.

And I would not have been able to develop the resume that you need to try to become a judge. I would not have been able to do any of those things. And I certainly would not be here sitting as a candidate for a senior judge position without the support of my parents.

In the three decades since I was an ICA law Clerk, I have had tremendous personal and professional growth. I've matured as a person, as a parent, as a lawyer, and as a jurist. And my life experience, I believe, has prepared me for the challenges and tremendous responsibility of being Chief Judge of the ICA.

And if confirmed, I will do my very best for the people of Hawaii. And I respectfully ask for this Committee's support. Thank you. Thank you very much.

So are there any other witnesses in support or in opposition to this GM? Questions?

You're good. I'll ask a question.

Please proceed, Senator Chang.

Thank you, chair. Thank you so much for being with us and sharing your story today. I wanted to talk about one of the specific things that you mentioned earlier, which was the backlog of cases that had developed and your efforts to bring that down.

Can you go into more detail as to what process changes were made in order for the ICA to operate on a greatly more efficient basis to bring down that backlog? And how much time do you believe is a reasonable amount of time for an appeal to the ICA to be resolved?

So, in terms of going into more detail, the main two pilot reforms were, you know, we tried to write short, and we worked on the oldest cases and priority cases.

And if I could just break that down into detail, at any given time, all of us and our six person, very talented team of staff attorneys, we all were tracking how many of the oldest appeals we have left. So everybody knows how many we have left.

And so the focus is on, let's get those out quickly because those parties and litigants are waiting. So I think this constant attention and mindfulness as to that, we also, our staff attorneys are very experienced, so we are able to now pull them in to assist us on some of the more difficult appeals.

That has also made a tremendous difference.

And I think you also asked me about reasonable time. Two years and under would be a milestone for the ICA, but I hope that we can even go further than that where we could, you know, possibly one day, if we get seven judges and we are stable for a while.

There's been a lot of turnover in the past. In the five years I've been at the court, there's been turnover. It does take--there is a learning curve for appellate judges to be able to produce and be productive.

It helps a lot if they come in with an appellate litigation background, but they're still learning about how the ICA does things, how we draft our process of--because we're deciding together. But I will say that I would like to get way under two years, maybe a year.

That would be ideal, and if we could bring back more oral arguments so that the court could be more transparent and people who have cases before the ICA could present argument on a regular basis. We rarely deny oral argument.

People don't ask us very much and we tend to grant most of those, but I think if we get to a point where our backlog is very under control and we can devote the time and energy for oral argument, it does take up a lot of preparation time and logistics and preparation to have oral argument. But I would like to see that. That would be a goal for us to strive toward.

Thank you. Thank you, chair.

Other questions? Go ahead. Senator San Buenaventura.

So--and I apologize for that--I just want to make sure you know that it's during this time that we have conferences. So when chair walked out, it's because it was necessary and not because of this interest, because obviously you're applying for a position that is of high importance.

And I really do appreciate that we talked before here because I imparted to you my concern that the ICA court, because it produces, it handles far more cases than the Hawaii Supreme Court, that a number of the opinions, especially in my background in family law, still remain as the law of the land until the Hawaii Supreme Court picks apart bits and pieces of it.

So it--I also do appreciate that you have shared with us your background because math is not the only thing we have in common. The fact that you were raised in a small-business family--so did I--it did impart a strong work ethic, which, as you know, as Chief Judge, you're going to need to do.

Yes.

You're going to need to make hard choices, and, you know, in Hawaii, running a small business, and especially a kid of a business person, you're the unpaid laborer having to come in at the emergency time. So I really do appreciate that you share this, your background.

I do want to make sure, though, that the commitment to the one-year remains because like you--and I had shared when I did ICA appeals, five years was common for decision, and I'm really super glad that when we added in the extra ICA judge that it--and Katherine Leonard coming in--that you folks have cut it down, but I wish you, as Chief Judge, we have a commitment to prioritize because one year for like custody cases is way too long and one year for criminal cases is way too long. Okay?

So I understand the civil suits because they're required to post bond anyway and they're required to pay with the post-judgment interest anyway. Those you can probably, you know, keep aside, but I also request that you look into more dispute resolution, right.

I know when I stop becoming a litigator, dispute resolution isn't that common in the ICA appeal, but maybe it's something that needs--that's necessary, more necessary. And that's basically it. It's not really questions because you're highly qualified. I just want commitments that you pursue a lesser amount of time and that kind of prioritization.

Yeah. So the child custody and the criminal cases, we are required by law to put those first, so those are designated priority anytime child custody is at issue and defendants in custody. So we get those out pretty quick. It's not even a year. We get those out fast. Yeah.

Well, then we start looking into commitments then, okay, because that is a form of incarceration, too. And we're going to go more into more mental health issues statutorily, that it'll probably end up being appealed as the AG keeps threatening us with. So those kinds of things we want you to consider expediting too. Thank you.

Thank you.

Other questions? Senator Chang.

Thank you. Do you feel that your court is properly resourced to dispose of cases in a timely fashion, as San Buenaventura already mentioned? And I would include in that the compensation for yourself and your colleagues.

It--I know that some of this has been in the press, but it is difficult to recruit attorneys from the private sector. So even within my court, half of us are public sector and half of us are private sector, but I think the compensation, if the--I believe it's the Salary Commission's package--if that is confirmed, then that would really help in terms of judicial recruitment.

A strong judiciary is a diverse judiciary, so we need jurists with background diversity. We need to be able to attract people from the attorneys from the private sector, and so the increased salaries will very much help that. In terms of my court, I think you at one point mentioned when we talked, do you folks need an eighth judge? But that--I think that would be welcome.

But even in adding on the seventh judge, we are still, we're still in the process of constructing our chambers for our seventh judge. So the newest member of our court, Judge Guidry, has--she's not been in a proper chambers on our floor because we're still--she's in a--she's in the basement of our building.

We have, so, the funding to have the new judges there, but then it takes us time to construct proper chambers and for her and her staff. So we're in the process of that now. We had a, we've had a very bad problem with leaks just in our building. It's been very bad and I think we're now at the point where our whole roof needs to be replaced.

But those kinds of physical maintenance issues, that also takes up a lot of time of our admin judge; then it's also Acting Chief Judge Leonard has spent a lot of time on that kind of water leak issue also, but these are things that will also fall under the Chief Judge's purview and we would work together with our Judiciary Administrative Director's Office to come before you folks and ask for funding for those kinds of needs.

Thank you, chair.

Thanks. Another question? Okay, I have a couple. Sounds to me like my colleagues have gone down most of the rabbit holes that I was interested in. With regard to the potential eighth ICA judge, I mean, finding office spaces--we can find office space somehow--but this, the notion that, I mean, theoretically you have seven right now but I think in practice there's only been--how long do you think it's--have you kept track of how long you've actually had seven judges in place? Like how many months?

And that was about--I don't know--five years ago, I guess, that we--I can't remember how long--it was my bill, by the way. All you ICA people, that was my bill, but I can't remember.

Thank you for that.

I think I was still in the House, so that might have been quite a while ago.

So we have our annual report, and I actually pulled it out and you can actually see the pictures. So this is like 2018. You see six judges there in the picture. So that's down one.

Okay.

This is 2019; we're at seven judges. 2020, it has seven judges, but this, this year, we--two of them retired, Judge Chan and Judge Fujise retired within that year. So then we're down to five. Then in 2021, here's six again; we're one short. 2022, we're at six again with one vacancy. 2023, we are at seven with Chief Judge Ginoza still there. And then 2024, we're down to six.

Okay. So like half the time since the seventh judge was authorized, you've probably not had seven.

Yes.

So I guess the other question is, I mean, a certain amount of churn is inevitable. I suppose you could, you know, make prognostications about which ICA judges might apply for Supreme Court positions, but there really isn't very many places to go up for you guys. But people retire and do other things at some point in their lives.

So I guess--do you think that level of churn is unusual? I mean, when we had five judges, were there not--were we often not at four because we didn't have--I think that's been a while now, but that's--I know that when I first--my first job in Hawaii was at the ICA, so--and that was 30 years ago.

So like, at that time we only had five--there was only five, but I think that there were periods when there was only four. I guess my point is, having eight judges doesn't really mean having eight judges. It means that if the term stays at sort of historic levels, you're going to be down a judge routinely.

I mean, that's what it seems based on our historical kind of trend.

As Chief Judge of the ICA, can you designate somebody to come and fill that position from a lower court or is that something that CJ has to do?

Actually, both Chief Judge Ginoza and Acting Chief Judge Leonard has done this. We have been able to arrange for just temporary ICA judges, so we've had retired ICA judges come and do short stints on the court just to help us with like our motions.

But you're not pulling anybody out from circuit or anything like that?

Yeah, we don't--I'm not sure why, but we don't do that. Yeah. Although in circuit they do pull from district and they have a full-time substitute.

Right. That's why I was curious because, I mean, at the Supreme Court level, of course, they do pull people off to--

Oh, we do--we do do that, just on the, just on deciding appeals, though.

Yes.

So we do get circuit court judges substituting in.

Okay.

For decision-making.

The other question I had was--well, it's following up from other questions, so, I mean, I guess part of it is we're in the world of where I can go order online whenever I want and it shows up in three days and, you know, the timeframes are really small.

When you start talking about--I mean, when I was a volunteer clerk for the ICA, I think that's--the judges were like five years behind. So two years is great compared to five years but it still seems like--two years seems like a really long time in this day and age. What--if you had enough people, if you had enough judges, you had enough staff, what's a reasonable time to turn around an appeal?

Within a year.

So you think it would take a year to do an appeal? What takes up all that time?

You have to have a complete record.

Yeah.

Sometimes there's transcript issues. I know in terms of the Court Reporter's Office, there's been extreme shortages there. They are short-staffed. So there's a lot of sort of built in delay right there.

But the filing deadline, so you have to, you have to file the appeal. Then how long are the brief—how long is the first round of briefs usually? How many days? What's the deadline?

30 days for a notice of appeal to be filed from whatever final judgment.

Right.

And then, typically, the first brief is due 30 days, once the record on appeal...

Has been collected.

Yeah.

Okay. And then are there additional briefs after the initial one? I mean, a rebuttal briefs of some kind?

Yes, there's an opening brief, and the other side can file an answering brief. And then the appellant can file a, like a rebuttal, a reply brief.

And it's a month between each of those?

It's a month between, but most often, they are extended at the request of the parties. So, there's delays in the briefing, but they are requested by the parties themselves.

Okay.

Yeah.

All right. Well, it just seems like a really long time. So, if it's being held up by the shortage of getting the transcript together, that's even more painful to watch from a sort of overall administrative level.

So, I hope you'll keep in mind that getting to two years is great, but that in this day and age, it seems like we should be able to do a lot better. We're not using typewriters anymore.

Right. No, I appreciate that. I—when you said that to me during our interview, I was like, yeah, we shouldn't be patting ourselves back on the back with two years. We should try to keep going.

You should be patting yourself on the back, but it doesn't seem to me like that should be the ultimate goal.

Yes, I agree. I agree.

Okay. I think that's everything I've got. Anybody else? Okay, thank you very...

Maybe chime in. Just an idea. You know, one thing that we had at the city that I thought was very helpful during my time as a City Council Member was the Auditor would prepare a report of benchmarking all the city departments against their counterparts across the country.

And something that the Committee might consider doing during the interim is to look at where the other 49 states are and try to benchmark how long these appeals take and see if we can establish some, you know, nationally benchmarked best practices.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you.

All right, as I mentioned, we won't be voting today, so that's 10 o'clock on Thursday. And thank you, you and everybody who came in to support you for being here. We'll move on to Governor's message 788.

This is submitting for consideration confirmation of the circuit court judge, the First Circuit—of the Circuit Court of the First Circuit, which is Oahu, Gubernatorial appointee, Karen Alhama, for a term to expire in 10 years. First up on...

First up on June 788 is Craig Warshowski for the Pacific Home and Appliance Distribution, in support. Lance Inouye for Relfes Inouye Company Ltd., in support. Anthony Borga or Borge for RMA sales, in support. Jari Nakata Maruyama for Hawaii Women's Lawyers, in support. Ryan Sakuta for General Contractors Association of Hawaii, in support. Celeste Gonzalez.

Come on up for Judge Alhama. Oh, yes, I did. I.

You're, you're first, Mr. Inouye. Come on up. Come on up.

I'll be reading. No, it's okay. Good morning.

Chair Rhoads, and I don't see Vice Chair Gabbard, but he might be looking online, and Members of the Committee on Judiciary. Thank you for allowing me to just say a few words. I stand on my testimony in support.

And I just want to say I can't think of a better person to be on the Judiciary as Karen Homma. She has impeccable legal skills, as I've mentioned in my written testimony. And most of all, she is a caring, fair, and equitable person.

So, I just want to mention that. You can't pick a better candidate to me than Karen. So, thank you very much.

Okay. Ms. Gonzalez. Good morning again.

Hello. Good morning. My name is Celeste Gonzalez. I'm a post litigant. I am here testifying in complete opposition to Judge Karen Hommas to seek her—for her to seek a higher position in this court.

And I also want to thank all your staff in all the five offices that I reached out to that I provided my full report. I wasn't aware it was going to be posted in the testimonies, but that's okay. So, here are the facts. I'm a pro state litigant. I am permanently disabled. I'm on Section 8 housing assistance.

I'm on SNAP benefits. I was illegally evicted twice on the same day by Judge Karen Homma. She purposely was on the attorney side. She provided legal advice to them. In many of the court proceedings, she disregarded Hawaii rules of civil procedure. She muted my arguments for the mandatory federal HUD rules. She often just discredited all my arguments, even though I knew what the rules meant and what was happening in my cases.

A lot of times people automatically put me in a little box. Oh, she's on Section eight. Oh, she's disabled. Oh, she's on food stamps. So, therefore, people think they can just take advantage and treat me however they want to treat me.

But what they, that, what, what they, what the attorneys and some of the other judges, but I'm only talking about her right now. What they didn't expect is that I'm smart. I have a master's level degree. I have analytical skills.

I have strong writing skills, and I fought all the way to the ICA, to the Supreme Court of Hawaii, and also to.

Your time is expired.

Okay, please ask me questions, somebody.

Okay, thank you.

Please. I'll stay.

Next is Audrey Hidano in support. William Domingo in support. Mike Keto in support. Sarah Nya Love in support. Marcus Oshiro in support. Adrian Lavarius in support. Matthew Shannon in support. Bruce Lawson in support. Christian Chambers in support. Michelle Carroll in support. Gina Thielen in support. Derek Kobayashi in support.

If anyone is here, you're more than welcome to testify. I've seen none. Oh, well, I was going to say, if anybody else would like to testify on this nominee, please come up.

My name is Sherry Eha. I'm a retired district court judge.

Okay. Yeah.

Good morning, Senator Rhodes, Senator Chen. Thank you very much for your time this morning. I met Judge Homma when she became a district court judge, and so, we were colleagues. We quickly became very good friends.

And mainly it was because we worked—or we discussed cases.

Sorry, maybe you better pull the mic a little closer to you.

We bounced a lot of cases off of each other, and I was very impressed with her sharp mind. And she quickly rose to being a supervisor in the district court and the civil side. And, you know, in the last year and a half, she's been sitting in the circuit court judges—as a circuit court judge.

The main thing, I think, about Judge Homma is that she has a great heart. She's a great friend. She's gone through a lot in the last year and a half with her husband, you know, was diagnosed with very serious illness, and it was probably about two years now, and we didn't think he was going to make it.

But even with all of that going on, you know, she threw herself 100% into sitting in circuit court. And I could see how much, although she loves being a district court judge, how much more it was to be back in her wheelhouse, to be back doing civil cases on, on the circuit court level. She was very—it was very impressive.

And I think that, you know, to be able to compartmentalize what you're going through in your personal life and still put 100% into your job is something that she should be commended for. And I have every confidence that she will be an excellent circuit court judge, as she is an excellent district court judge.

Thank you very much.

Thank you. Would anyone else like to testify on GM 788, Judge Homma. If not. Mr. Emirakami. Good morning again.

Morning, Chair Rhodes, Members of the Committee, thank you. Mark Emirakami, President of the Hawaii State Bar Association. Judge Homma was subjected to our rigorous process to determine her qualifications for this office, including review of her application both to the JFC as well as the separate application we have. All of her references were checked. And the board—she met with the board yesterday in a very comprehensive interview process.

The board voted and provided—authorized me—to provide testimony that she's qualified for the position that she's been nominated to. Thank you.

Thank you very much, and at this point, Members, questions for testifiers?

Okay, I'm going to ask Celeste. Yeah, go ahead. Come on up. Okay, s, but be mindful of the time. I want you be..

I'll be as concise as possible.

Give us one example, just one, I'm sure there are many, but you believe disqualifies Karen Homma.

So, I can only speak when she was at the district court. So, the district court in Hawaii is known as the People's Court. Correct? And the—there's a lot of programs to support pro state litigants and all that, right. So, you come into court, and you really believe that you're going to have a chance. Right?

You do your research, you do your homework. You know the rules. You don't really know the rules, but you know enough to get by.

Give us an example.

So, an example would be—specifically is on September 24th, 2021. Okay. There's two parts to it. It started on September 10th, and I—she evicted me doing a motion for summary judgment. I was stuck in quarantine. I couldn't get my paperwork because my mail was at the P.O. box.

And so, after I got out of quarantine, I filed motions to overturn the—because I have the correct lease. And then she—and that is when I was blocked from filing motions and getting court dates and everything, or, yeah, getting court dates. And September 10th, I was forgotten in a witness room.

And then she still had a court hearing exporte with the opposing side and gave them a strategy with instructions on how to still evict me because she had to rule favor—rule in favor—of my motions because I provided the certified Section 8 proper legal lease that they did not provide in the original complaint that they filed.

Which means that both of the complaints filed should have been unconscionable.

So, there was a transcript that showed the instruction?

Oh, yes. Yes.

And you appealed that?

Okay. And the appeal, is the appeal still in process?

Yes.

So, what happened was in the appeal, it was Judge Leonard, and this is the one that I have an issue with at ICA. The whole thing, it was the way that it was written. It was written with a blind eye to protect Tatuma.

So, my appeal and the decision that affirmed everything was not based on the merits of the transcripts. It was not even considered all the things, all the rules and everything that was broken. It was very, very frustrating.

Other than the appeal, did you, did you complain about Judge Homma to?

So many times.

No. Well, I don't know what the version.

Okay, okay. I can tell you what they, what they are.

So did you, did you?

So, so, so I have filed many writ of mandamus against her. I won one.

Okay. What else did you do?

And then right now, there is a full investigation going on with the Judiciary—the Commission of Judicial Conduct—right now. I submitted it in December.

And because my report ended up to be like 300 pages with all the exhibits and everything, so when the nice lady answered the phone, told me, you know, it's very comprehensive, it's going to take a while to go through everything that I provided.

So, was there a resolution?

No, no, they're still investigating it. It's a huge case. There's a lot of, a lot of information, because the...

The judge did not dismiss it?

Oh, no, no, no, no, no. It's, it's, it's very, it's very active. It's, yeah. And, you know, the judicial, the judicial oppression, you know, didn't stop there. It continued on with other things.

But I know, I'm just saying that—I mean, I mean, the most recent one happened in last November.

Okay.

So, I've been dealing with this for a long time. I—thank you so much for reading my report because I can tell you actually, at least skimmed through it. Okay, I can tell.

Thank you. Thank you.

Oh, no more other questions?

No, because I'm going to go talk—I have questions of the HR.

Okay, no problem.

No, stay here. I do have follow up questions.

Yes. I love questions.

So, yeah, we, we read the—I read the ICA opinion.

The ICA opinion. Oh, okay.

It did actually find that Judge Homma had made a couple of mistakes. So, my question for you—so, my understanding is there was a situation where you weren't in the room, you weren't in the room when she made a ruling.

That was one of the infractions, yes.

So, but how did she rule? Did she rule in your favor when you weren't in the room, or did she rule against you when you weren't in the room?

So, she ruled, so, can I have the second sentence with that? She ruled in my favor because she didn't have a choice not to, because I'm the one who provided.

Then what's the harm of?

Because I provided the correct Section 8 lease, so it was a motion for some rejudgment, overturned, and then.

That's not my question.

How, how I was prejudiced, Senator Rhoads was after she went ahead and ruled, she provided them with a strategic plan and gave them permission to file another motion for summary judgment and instructed them...

In the ICA opinion about that.

Exactly. That's because Judge Leonard did not address all my other points of error. They were in there.

Okay, so after that occurred, so that was in, I think you said in '19, 2021.

Yes.

Okay. So, then, we have a letter from you to the First Circuit Court, Deputy Chief Judge May, Melanie May.

Oh, yes, yes.

Dated January 30th, 2023, asking did Judge Homma be assigned to your case. So why would you ask her to be assigned?

I don't know which letter you're, you're talking, you're referring to in 2023. Can I please see that?

It's asking you, you're asking her to be assigned to her case two years after you felt that you'd been—Judge Homma had done something incorrect, which not, the ICA did say that, but they also said harmless error, so I don't, you know, she ruled in your favor. I'm not sure what the complaint is.

Well, so.

Why did you want to go back? That's the other question.

So, the reason why this had occurred was because Judge McQueenie was ruling at that time, and he wasn't allowing me to give history of the case, and these are the attorneys that were very aggressive and became friends with Judge Homma.

And so, I wanted, I requested for her to be back because she knew the history of this particular situation. I'm still mad about the other thing, but I didn't know that the ICA was going to rule against me.

Now, Senator Rhoads, you know, just because you overturned my motions, it ended up to be really bad because she then gave them a strategic plan, which is in these transcripts, told them what to do.

Told them what to do, and then also instructed them to provide the correct lease that I provided so that they could rule in their favor, but then told me that I'm going to have a trial, and that was never going to have a trial. It was all set up against me.

I don't believe there was anything in the ICA opinion about that. I don't know.

Exactly. Because they, they did—because she discredited all of that. It was very...

Thank you very much. It was very prejudicial questions for this witness. I mean, testifier.

Sorry, witness.

I'm not a judge. I never will be. I don't want to be. So, it was a mistake. All right, thank you very much. Thanks for being here. Judge Homma, I think we're ready for you. Oh, I'm sorry. Somebody got a question for H—yeah. Okay, go ahead, go ahead.

Okay, thank you. Okay. My question is—my perennial question is when you, when, when you did the. I guess the survey of the, of the, of HSBA members, how many, how many responded?

We did receive member comments on all six of the nominees.

So, regarding Judge Homma.

I don't remember.

We did six yesterday. And after our last conversation two weeks ago and an inquiry from the chair, we will take the Senate's request that we provide more information about our member comments to the members, but, but we're not gonna do that in the middle of appointments that have already been named and proceeded by.

We have a written policy that is fair to our members as well as the nominees who are also our members. And so, we received the feedback, and we will take it once we don't have pending nominations, and the board will have to consider whether we'll serve the membership. And you can provide comment as a member.

But this is the process we've done for years and changing in midstream, in the hot seat, I don't think it's fair to anybody, especially the members who provided those comments.

All I asked for is how many responded. I didn't ask for each comment that was made. So, the answer is you don't know, and it could be as small as 5 or 4, which is basically my concern the last time. Could be one. Only one person responded.

Could be. We have six. We did six yesterday. So, I think we did receive comments for all the nominees, but these are typically not hundreds.

Okay, so the State Bar and no, so State Bar's position is if there is 1 comment or 0 comments, so long as they have interviewed your board, has interviewed the nominees, then you represent the State Bar, despite the lack of anybody responding to your survey.

Yeah. The Member comments are one piece of that. So, it's the board vote that actually authorizes us to come here today. We do solicit confidential comments from our membership. Sometimes they comment, sometimes they don't.

Did you look into the, the complaints that Celeste Gonzalez has made? Not necessarily that complaint, but she said that she has made a complaint to the judicious board. Did you look into those, how many of those?

That was disclosed to the Board of the Bar, and we asked her about it in our interview process.

Okay, and how many were there? How many complaints? Do you know?

Oh, I don't.

Okay. Okay, thank you.

All right, thank you. Hang on a second.

I don't know—I don't think we should count on State Bar Association opinions at all.

Okay. Sorry about the delay. Judge Homma, please. If you'd like to make an opening statement, you're more than welcome.

Thank you, Chair Rhoads, Senator San Buenaventura, and to the Senators who aren't present today. I thank you. This is the highlight of my professional career to be sitting here in front of you today. It's been my dream to be a Circuit Court judge.

I thank you all for the time and effort and energy in meeting with me and the effort that you folks go through to vet each of the nominees. I thought I would talk a little bit about my family background a little bit.

Judge Nakasone and I went through confirmation when she was appointed to the ICA in 2020, and I was appointed to District Court in 2020, and we have often commented how our backgrounds are very similar, in addition to the fact that we're both named Karen. My parents are immigrants from Finland.

My mother immigrated in 1937, and my father immigrated in 1959. They lived in Astoria, Oregon, which has a fairly sizable Finnish community and that's how they met. And then along came my brother—myself, my sister, and my brother were all one year apart.

My father had a third grade education and he worked in a sawmill when he came, and then eventually, became a General Contractor. My mother stayed home with us and then eventually became a Secretary. Just like Judge Nakasone told you about her parents, our parents instilled in us a very, very strong work ethic.

And education was the most important thing. Our parents told us that whatever—we could do whatever we wanted, provided we got a college education. I went to college and law school in Oregon, and I met my first husband, a wonderful person. We are still very good friends and moved to Hawaii in 1989.

I have been here since—for 36 years. My first job was at Liberty House. I took the Oregon Bar in 1989 because my father asked me to do that, even though I was certain I would never go back to Oregon, but I did that for him.

And then, I worked at Liberty House downtown until February 1990 when I took the Hawaii Bar. I have worked in the same 4 block radius for 36 years of my life. I worked at the Liberty House. I took the Hawaii Bar. When I took the Hawaii Bar in 1990, then Judge Moon just became an Associate Justice.

They announced during the bar exam that he was looking for a Law Clerk and I was fortunate enough and that he took a chance on me and hired me as his law Clerk in 1990.

I stayed with him for two years and then I went to the law firm that is now known as Lung, Rose, Voss, and Wegnold. And there I was for almost 28, 29 years.

I did do a brief little stint at the AG's Office very soon after I started at the firm because I wasn't sure was litigation really what I wanted to do. And sure enough, it was. I loved my time at the law firm. I did mostly construction litigation.

I was a litigator, also some real estate and other business dispute litigation. The last five years I was at the firm, I was the managing partner of the firm. In 2020. I was very honored when Chief Justice Rechtenwald appointed to me to be a District Court judge. I thank Judge Eha for her testimony today.

She was a true mentor to me because I had no criminal background and she had been a prosecutor before she became a District Court judge, and she provided me invaluable help and guidance as a District Court judge. I have loved being a District Court judge. I am still—I was appointed in November 2020.

My term would be up next year. I—when you start off at District Court, you do start off in the criminal's courts. And then eventually over the years, I did move over to civil.

Although when I was still sitting at District Court, I still always wanted to do one, at least one day of criminal because I always want to keep up with developments in the law on in criminal law and practice and procedure. In February of 2024, I was assigned to sit at Circuit Court for retiring Judge Crabtree.

And that is where I sit today. It is a civil calendar. And that is, as Judge Eha said, it was my 25 plus years in civil practice. I am thrilled to be at Circuit Court. I'm thrilled to be at District Court. But the Circuit Court law is something that I feel very passionately about.

Sorry my husband could not be here today. He could not be here. I wanted him to be here. He is just an absolutely wonderful person and just is great. I have two goals when I go into the office every day.

One is to do the right thing, and number two is to be a better judge today than I was yesterday. I'm always learning and trying to be a better judge. I read the opinions that come down from the appellate courts that apply to civil. Every day, I take a look at those. I think that's—I appreciate again, your time, and I am thrilled to be here, and I hope to be confirmed as a Circuit Court judge.

Okay, thank you. Sir.

Yes, sorry. So, I'm going through ecort kukua here, and I do see corroboration in what Celeste Gonzale says, that there was a writ of searcher, writ of mandanus, that was filed against you, that was granted. I didn't download the documents to go look at. Why don't you tell us about that?

So, that was a—after the eviction case, Ms. Gonzalez filed several cases against the attorneys that were representing the landlords and against the landlords themselves. There was one small—and they were mostly small claims court cases. And the reason, by the way, that I handled a lot of Ms. Gonzalez's cases, I was assigned to Kaneohe District Court, and that's where Ms. Gonzalez's cases were.

There was one small claims court, again, a case against attorney Jean Orkay. There was an issue about—there was a dispute over whether Ms. Orkay had been served properly with the complaint. Ms. Orkay would appeared at the, and then she would contest jurisdiction because she would argue she hadn't been served. And I agreed, it did not appear that she had been served.

Ms. Gonzalez did file the writ of mandamus to the Hawaii Supreme Court, and they said consider her served and move on, which, frankly, I think that was the right decision by the Hawaii Supreme Court. That is—it is how I handled small claims court because the rules of evidence do not apply.

The rules of civil procedure do not apply in small claims court. The idea in small claims court is just to get those cases moving and resolved. So, but that was the ultimate determination by the Hawaii Supreme Court.

Okay, yeah, I see it's November 2023. Okay. The other question is Ms. Gonzalez has stated that she has filed a complaint. Has that been resolved?

It has not. It's pending.

Okay, did they give you a time frame as to when that resolution will occur?

No.

Okay, thank you.

Well, I'll go ahead and follow up from there. So, what, what does the accus—how would you characterize the accusation? Or do you know what the accusation is in the, in the judicial, in the Commission on Judicial Conduct? Have they already told you what it is?

Yeah, they provided a copy. It is, as Ms. Gonzalez said, approximately 80 or 100 pages of complaints that she has made against me with Judge May in other courts. They—this is probably confidential, but I'm going to disclose—they asked me to respond to two issues. They asked me to respond to the issue about her, Ms. Gonzalez, being in the, in the waiting room during that one court hearing in September. And also, Ms. Gonzalez testified today that she was blocked from filing documents at District Court.

She alleges that I prevented her from filing motions at District Court from a period of time, sometime in 2021 to November 2022.

I'm happy to respond to both of those issues right now if you'd like me to. Sure. Okay. On the issue about Ms. Gonzalez being in the waiting room, Ms. Gonzalez had a lot of cases pending at that time.

I'm sorry to interrupt. So, this is the one that went—did she, Ms. Gonzalez, appealed the ICA?

No, no, no. This is the one, this is the one—oh, I'm sorry. You're right. You're absolutely right. It's the, it's the one she appealed. The, the issue was I did not know that she was in the courthouse. And when in Circ—District Court—we had probably 100 people sitting in District Court, both on Zoom and in person.

Ms. Gonzalez, I did not know from time to time whether she would be on Zoom or in person. That particular day, apparently, I found out after court that she had come in person, she had checked in appropriately with the bailiff, and then when her case was called, the bailiff did not go get her.

So, I had no idea that she was actually sitting in the courthouse. And then, the case proceeded, as you—it was a motion for reconsideration. And I did rule that she had raised a sufficient issue in her motion to merit.

So, for non lawyers, you ruled in her favor?

I did rule in her favor.

Even though she wasn't there?

Even though she wasn't there.

Okay, so that does raise a question in my mind. Why did you proceed without her being there?

It was an eviction case that had been going on for months and months, and the, it was—since I was going to be ruling in her favor, that meant the other side needed to move forward if that's what they wanted to do. So, would I do that again? No, but it would have just delayed the process once again.

I'm sorry, so I interrupted you. Was there a second?

Not at all.

And then the second issue was Ms. Gonzalez believes that the court clerks at District Court were instructed to only give anything she filed to me to review before it was assigned or if it was decided. And frankly, that just, just wasn't true.

It is true that I was assigned by Judge Darrell and Lendio, who was my direct supervisor. Judge Lendio was in charge of civil matters during that time period until her very tragic death in December of 2022. And so, judge Lendio assigned me to review certain documents. Judge Lendio also told me, please review these from Ms. Gonzalez because you handle her cases in Kaneohe.

That ended—I did not review as many because in January of 2023, I was assigned to move from Kaneohe to Ewa District Court to handle that civil calendar. And then, I was also assigned to take Judge Lendio's place as head of all civil.

Okay, thank you. So, so following up, as I mentioned to Ms. Gonzalez, I showed her a letter that said that she had indicated that she had wanted to be back under—to have her case moved back to you. Did you, do you know, do you—there's really no question. I, I don't understand why that would be.

Do you have any speculation as to why she would want to come back to your court after?

I do not. I, to be honest, I'd forgotten that she had written a letter in January of 2023. I do know that in May of 2023, she also filed a motion for me to sit, I have a copy of that, to hear that case as well.

Okay. All right. Let's, let's talk about something else now. I think Judge Nakasone talked about, to a certain extent, the recruitment issues with judges, especially coming from the private sector. I'm not asking you to reveal anything that you don't want to reveal. But you did come from the private sector.

You're one of relatively small number of judges, at least during my tenure as a Judiciary Chair that has been appointed from the private sector. You said you're the managing partner of, of a medium to large sized law firm.

Medium sized law firm.

Are you willing to—I know you took a pay cut when you went to District Court. Are you willing to tell us how big a pay cut you took?

I, I, about a 50%—more than 50%.

Okay, so, okay, so as a district court judge, you make roughly $175,000. Okay, let's see, there was something else.

But I do thank you for the raises. I think that will, I agree with Judge Nakasone. I think that will make a difference in recruitment and recruiting attorneys who are in the private sector to apply to become judges.

A little bit of a different tangent. So, at Circuit Court, if you're confirmed, you expect to stay on the civilization civil docket?

Right. I'm sitting the 22nd Division, which is the civil calendar. And that's the position for which I've been appointed.

And that's the one that you—that's the dream job.

That is the dream job.

Okay, the other question is—so, I, I think if I remember correctly, you're about the same age as I am, which means that you will not be able to do the full 10-year term.

That is correct. I keep hoping that a Bill passes and the constitution is amended, and the age is increased to 75. I think there are several judges who have retired more recently that would not have retired but for the aging out at age 70, I would love to serve a full 10 year term.

All right, thank you. That's it then. You're off the hook. I appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you. We'll move on to the final governor's message for today, which is GM789 submitting for consideration and confirmation as Circuit Court judge of the First Circuit of the Circuit Court of the first Circuit, which is Oahu Gubernatorial appointee Taryn R.

Tomasa Gifford for a turn to sire 10 years. First up for 789 is public defender John Ikenaga. Good morning again.

You know, I submitted written testimony and that was on behalf of the office. Rather than just go over it, you know, the fact that Taryn is extremely qualified for the position. You know, I've worked with her for about 25 years, I'd say, and it was kind of cute because.

So last year I became public defender and one of the persons that I selected as a supervisor was Taryn. And so when she got the call from the Governor, she came to my office the other like a couple weeks ago or a few weeks ago, and she said I got the call and she was kind of crying.

And I said, I don't know, does that, is this good or bad? You can't tell. But she was very emotional, which is unusual for Taryn. And I think one that just shows how much this position means to her.

The second thing that I thought was funny was she thanked me for giving her a chance, you know, at the position. And she said she thought that really helped her. But, you know, and I was more in kind of like shock because of her emotions.

And I did make a comment about that and she said, you know, I'm human. I'm emotional. But the fact is, is that Taryn earned that position. She's one of the hardest workers I know. She comes in before anybody else in the morning. She leaves after everybody else. She's there on weekends. She's. She's diligent.

She's, you know, anything I've asked her to do, she's done. Her legal knowledge is exemplary, despite the fact that she may not have as much civil experience and she may be sitting on a civil calendar. That won't matter because she's just really intelligent. She's already started the research, you know, into the civil side of the law.

So I have no doubt that she'll have no problem making that transition. You know, I'm just. I'm just very proud of her, you know, as a. As a colleague, a friend and a supervisor. You know, everything she's done, again, she's earned. She's worked hard. She's put in the hours. She's putting the time. And her qualifications are exemplary.

So the OPD Office. Public Defender Strong supports her nomination. Thank you.

Thank you very much. I apologize again. I'm going to have to recess for a few minutes. I'll be back hopefully in about five minutes.

All right, coming out of recess for the Judiciary Committee, we're on GM789. This is Taryn Tomasa for the Circuit Court. Next up is Hayley Cheng for Assistant Public Defender. She is the, an assistant of Public Defender. Good morning again.

Good morning again. Chair Rhoads. I have appeared before this committee on multiple other matters, and I think the committee knows, along with Jon Ikenaga and myself, we stepped into the role of state public defender and first deputy or assistant public defender in January 2024.

It was an incredibly daunting undertaking, something that we continue to strive to learn how to do to the best of our ability. But one of the things that we knew that we needed to do was gather a good team of supervisors to help us and to be part of our administration.

Without hesitation, Taryn was chosen to run our district court section to convey the overwhelming task that that is, I know this committee is familiar with the thousands of criminal cases and traffic cases that the public defenders handle in the district court section every year. Specifically, just on Oahu, we have courtrooms all across the island.

Additionally, our newest attorneys who come to us either straight out of law school or straight out of the clerkships come to the district court section. Very green, eager to learn, but in much need of mentorship and leadership. And that's exactly what why Taryn was chosen for this position. She exceeded all of our expectations.

It is a huge loss to our office that she hopefully will be leaving us for this new role. But I can think of nobody better. After there was another change in our office, we again tasked her with being the appellate supervisor, where she currently is.

And that's a testament to her overwhelming breadth of knowledge of the appellate of appellate law, case law. And because of her experience for all those years in the appellate section, she's able to pivot. She's a quick learner. And as John Ikenaga said, she is truly one of the hardest workers that I know.

So thank you for the opportunity to comment. It is my honor to testify on her behalf.

Thank you very much. Next, we have Michael Towne, retired judge, in support. Tiare Nakata-Maruyama for Hawaii Women Lawyers in support. And then I have a whole bunch of other individuals in support. Is there anyone else who wished, that's everyone who signed up. Anyone else wishing to testify on GM789 other than Mr. Murakami? Seeing none.

HSBA Mr. Murakami, good morning again.

Good morning. Thank you, Chair Rhoads. You know you're old when your law school classmates are getting appointed to be judges. Mark Murakami on behalf of the Hawaii State Bar Association. And Ms. Gifford underwent our very rigorous review, and the board voted to find her qualified for this position. I'll stand by for any questions you might have.

Great, thank you.

Senator San Buenaventura, any questions for any of the testifiers?

No.

Okay. All right. I don't have any either. So, Ms. Tomasa, if you want. Coming up, if you would like to make an opening statement, you're more than welcome.

Thank you, Chair Rhoads. Senator San Buenaventura, thank you for allowing me to come before you to talk to you about my nomination, about my personal background. But first, I would like to thank my chosen and found family, a lot of them who have written in, in support of my nomination and have supported me on this journey here.

So thank you to them and also thank you to my Ohana, for without them, I would not be here before you. So, Mom, Dad, Yayoi, Mayumi, Ryan, Stacy, Mark, Stuart, Monica, Alex, Sharon, and, of course, James, Pono, and Makani. I love you all, and thank you all for your support.

I wanted to introduce myself to you folks a little bit beyond the paperwork that you received. I was raised in a single-parent household. My parents divorced when I was young. I am the youngest of four siblings by far, and I was a latchkey child in the 1980s. My mom struggled raising four children and especially financially.

So I learned early on that if you wanted something, you had to work hard for it. And I did. And I worked my way through high school. And after graduating from Kamehameha, I worked and put myself through KCC.

And then after that, I attended the University of Hawaii at Manoa, and I worked multiple jobs, often at the same time. After I graduated from UH, I was in Americorps, and I assisted victims of domestic violence in family court. And then I went on to the William S. Richardson School of Law, where I graduated.

And by the time I graduated, I was an Apple grantee. I also had worked with every legal nonprofit on Oahu at the time. I was fortunate. I was able to be a research assistant in commercial transactions and banking.

And I also was able to publish an article in the Asian Law Journal through the University of California, Berkeley School of Law. After I graduated law school, I clerked for John Lim, and half of my clerkship was in the trial court, and the other half of my clerkship was in the appellate court.

After my clerkship completed, I went to the Office of the Public Defender, where I have a total of over 25 years there. I started off as a trial attorney, then I moved to an appellate attorney, and more recently a supervising attorney. I started off.

Actually, I've completed a number of jury trials, dozens of bench trials, hundreds of administrative hearings, I filed almost 200 briefs, dozens of writs, and I've done a number of oral arguments before the Hawaii appellate courts. As the district court supervisor, in a one-year period under my administration, I administered over 21,000 cases.

I supervised 12 attorneys and four staff members. More recently, I'm the appellate division supervisor, and that is for the State of Hawaii under the Office of the Public Defender. And I supervise six attorneys and two staff Members. I have worked with every type of person and personality.

I've worked with legislators, I've served on committees, I've worked with community leaders, agency head, law enforcement. I've represented individuals who struggle with mental health, with substance abuse, with homelessness, and poverty. And I was able to work collaboratively with all of these parties towards a mutual goal, often with divergent interests.

Personally, I'm married, mother of two boys, and as a parent I suffered the greatest loss that you could suffer at the loss of a child. Shortly after my daughter passed away, my younger son was misdiagnosed. And after four years of treatment, many roadblocks, multiple surgeries, he's made a full recovery.

But through my lived experiences, I have come out with understanding, insight, patience, and perseverance. And my personal and professional background have prepared me well for the circuit court bench.

Because every party that comes before the court will have suffered a loss, adversity, and entitled to a judge who has the depth and breadth of life, personal and professional experience to render a fair and just decision. And with your support, and if confirmed, I hope to be that judge.

If confirmed, I will be sitting on the civil bench and I will rely in part on my civil experience. But because it's limited, I would be relying more so on my 20-plus years of appellate experience, which I have developed and honed my skill set in issue identification, legal research, analysis, and writing.

Because anybody who sits on the civil court bench or the circuit court will have to rely on that same skill set. And when the day comes when there is a case or an issue that I am unfamiliar with and I need assistance, I will not hesitate to reach out to my colleagues.

And in fact, I have already reached out to a number of the circuit court judges, and I have been in touch with and communicated with every current sitting circuit court judge who had a criminal background and successfully made the transition.

And I have noted their suggestions and have confirmed I intend to follow through with those suggestions and advice. Also, I will be taking over of confirmed Judge Ochiai's calendar, and I've already spoken with him several times.

If confirmed, I will be sitting down with him, talking about the calendar and the cases, and meeting with his staff for the transition. My entire career I have spent working with and negotiating with parties, and that skill set will serve me well on the circuit court bench.

I am a career public servant, and I take that seriously; and it is my intent to continue to serve at the highest level. And with your support, and if confirmed, I hope to be sitting on the circuit court bench.

Thank you very much. Members, questions? I have a couple to get started with. So I mean, I think that's the biggest challenge is switching from a background that's almost entirely criminal to a civil haven't practiced law in a long time. But that sounds like a steep hill to climb.

You've already described some of the things you plan to do to address that, and so you're aware that that challenge exists. I guess, sort of. Bottom line question is you're up to it. You think you can do it?

Absolutely.

And you mentioned other people have done it too, so this would not be an unprecedented situation.

No. And like I said, I have spoken with all of the current sitting circuit court judges who made the transition. I believe that there are three, three of them. Judge Nichols, Judge Tonaki, Judge Kawamura. And I've spoken with all of them and I've noted all of their suggestions and advice.

In addition, I have also spoken to several other circuit court judges who have also given me advice, and I am up to the task.

I know that this is going to be a lot of work for me to learn the nuances in the rules in the procedure, but I am definitely up to the task and rely heavily on my appellate background to do so.

So none of the other ones that took this route, they said don't do it. I would never do that again.

No, they said it's actually the most interesting position. It's always new. Unlike criminal law, where it's the same type of rules, the same area of law that you're applying in the civil court, you could have a calendar of seven cases and have seven different types of cases that are coming before you.

There could be complex litigation, medical malpractice, there could be breach of contract, real property issues. And all of the judges I've spoken with, regardless of their background, had said that it's so interesting. And my appellate nerd self thinks that that is so exciting. And I can't wait to dig in.

So I do have a follow-up. So. Yeah, thank you, Chair. Because I did not have a chance to interview Ms. Tomasa before today's hearing, so I don't think so. So civil, I'm glad you mentioned that you're going to be in the civil, because it's not just regular civil litigation. It also means appeals from administrative decisions, right.

And it doesn't look like you were you per diem at all.

No, I was not. I am still currently at the Office of the Public Defender.

So as a litigator who did both civil and criminal, I think the litigation for criminal is far more difficult than doing civil, because with civil you can do depositions, but the laws are different, right?

Yes.

The same. The rules of the jury instructions are different.

Rules of evidence remain.

Yes.

Yes.

Because it depends upon what the current law is. So what, do you have a plan as to what happens when you are made to, well, like I said, I think litigation in civil is easier because you don't have the speedy trial requirement for criminal, but there still is a need for quick decisions.

Do you have a plan in the event that you are faced with emotion, that you do not know what the law is?

Yes. So if confirmed, I will be observing, actively observing the court hearings with the different judges. So I'll be reviewing pleadings, watching the hearings, and then discussing the matters with the judges after the hearings.

And so if I'm not exposed to that type of motion in my preparation phase, there are also audio and video recordings that I can watch and listen to that I will take advantage of.

But also, all of the judges who I've spoken to have recommend that it's practice to tell the attorneys that are coming before you, this is an unfamiliar area of law. Please educate me as part of your advocacy.

The litigants that will come before me, the attorneys, they're oftentimes experts in their field, having practiced 20 years and specializing in the area. And so that's my plan of attack. And if still things are nebulous for me, I would not hesitate to reach out to my colleagues.

Okay, so same thing that you were here when you saw Judge Holma being vilified by a pro se.

Yes.

The odds in a circuit court of having pro se litigants, I think, are far less than in district court, but they're still there, especially when it's administrative appeals.

Yes.

Right, like unemployment, public benefits, and the like. How are you able, gonna, how are you gonna be able to manage your demeanor? I mean, will you be. How do you plan to litigate when there's a pro se who may be unfamiliar? In Celeste's case, though, she sounds like she's super familiar with the law.

She is. You know, every party that comes before me, whether they're represented or they're pro se, is entitled to their day in court, entitled to present their side of the case. And I'm, I feel I'm well practiced. Having worked at the Office of the Public Defender for many years, I have encountered every personality.

And, you know, I think there might be a misperception that the clients at the Office of the Public Defender are uneducated, but that is not the case. There are a lot of very articulate, educated people who may take issue, who, as a supervisor, I had to deal with their complaints, complaints. And they're very articulate.

And I believe that I'm well-practiced and I have the right demeanor to engage with them. One of the, my strongest skill sets is my ability to communicate effectively with others. And I have worked with a lot of divergent interests towards a mutual goal, and hopefully a mutually acceptable result.

Not everybody's going to be happy, especially when you're coming to court. There's always going to be a party that prevails. But I would do my best to ensure that they have their say, they have their fair day in court, and treat them with respect.

Okay, thank you very much. And frankly, looking at your resume, I think you're well qualified for this position. The only other request I'm going to make is that dispute resolution.

One of the, and that's, that's one of the things that, because I didn't interview you before today, I requested of all the nominees is that you are going to be faced with a big docket.

Judiciary Committee always looks at the Judiciary Budget, and not necessarily we're not going to be able to usually grant the Judiciary's request for more judges, even though there's probably a need for it. But part of handling a busy docket is the ability to settle cases.

And from what I've heard in circuit court here in first circuit, basically the trial judge does the settling, is the settlement judge, too. So, my request that you also educate yourself in mediation techniques to be able to settle cases. Will you be able to do that?

Yes. And actually, one of the judges did recommend a program to me. And so I'm looking into it, and if confirmed, I hope to be able to attend it in the near future. And I do apologize, I did reach out to your office, but I know you folks are really busy right now.

Yes, So I do apologize for that.

Thank you. Just.

Okay, thank you very much.

Thank you. Senator Chang, any questions?

We have, we have three minutes, so we have caucus at 50 quarter after, so I'm going to stop it at 11:10, so go ahead.

All right, just very quickly then. You have a wealth of experience in the public defender's office as policymakers. What changes would you like us to consider in order to ensure that defendants are fully represented, with all their rights, and receiving fair trials?

I don't know if I'm in the appropriate position to comment on policy decisions.

I would just hope that the legislature continues to uphold the rights of those who are accused of crimes and ensure that the Office of the Public Defender and all law enforcement agencies and justice agencies are well funded and adequately staffed because there is a severe need for social services, mental health treatment, substance abuse treatment that remains in the community that could impact the criminal justice system.

And so do you believe that the lack of these social services are increasing, recidivism are increasing, you know, the number of crimes being committed, and that that's the primary focus that the legislature ought to be addressing?

I can't comment as a whole, but you know, I did have a caseload as a public defender, and I was in the jail diversion court as well as the community outreach court and district court, and there was a severe need for those types of services.

And it would assist individuals who struggle with mental health, with substance abuse issues, with poverty, and homelessness to get back on their feet.

Thank you. Thank you, Chair.

Thank you. I think we'll end it right there. Thank you, everybody, for being here. The vote, as I mentioned before, will be on Thursday, April 24th, at 10:00 a.m. in this room 225. Mahalo. Rejoicing.