The Hawaii State Judiciary needs money to design a new courthouse in Waimea, add a District Court judge in Kona and address
a “critical shortage” of court-appointed counsel in criminal and termination of parental rights cases, Hawaii Supreme Court Chief Justice Mark E. Recktenwald told state lawmakers Thursday.
Recktenwald, who delivered his eighth and final State of the Judiciary speech, will reach the Judiciary’s mandatory retirement age of 70 later this year.
State Senate President Ron Kouchi introduced Recktenwald to state lawmakers Thursday, noting that Recktenwald swore him into office when he joined the Senate.
“It’s been a real pleasure to work with the chief justice over the last 15 years,” Kouchi said. “He’s been incredibly innovative, creative, passionate, and has certainly been an outstanding manager as each of us had to be navigating through COVID (and) through security issues that we have faced. His service to our state has been tremendous. He will be missed, and I am so blessed to have had a great friend.”
Noting that he pulled quotes for his opening-day speech and Gov. Josh Green’s State of State address, Kouchi told Recktenwald he was “all out of quotes.”
“But my chief of staff,
Harrison Kawate, shared with me this morning, one
of our favorite movies is ‘Tombstone,’ and as Wyatt Earp is riding off with his posse to take care of all those bad guys in the world, we wanted to take a line from ‘Tombstone,’” Kouchi said. “This is the last charge of CJ Recktenwald and his band of immortals.”
Recktenwald, who was
appointed to his position in 2010, thanked lawmakers for the opportunity before launching into a reflection
of his time leading Hawaii’s high court.
“As a child growing up in Chicago, never in my wildest dreams did I imagine that one day I would have the honor and privilege of serving as Hawaii’s chief justice,” Recktenwald said. “When I first arrived in Hawaii in 1980, I didn’t know a soul. I carried my resume around this building and found my first job here, working as a committee clerk. The person who decided to give me a chance was Sen. Ann Kobayashi, and I am forever grateful to her. I developed a deep respect for the Legislature — a respect that continues to this day. So standing here, in this place, at this time … is truly a full-circle moment.”
When Recktenwald took control of the Judiciary, there was no Veterans Court, Environmental Court or Women’s Court. Now those programs are “flourishing,” he said.
In 2010, people appearing for court in West Hawaii did so in “repurposed buildings scattered along the coast,” and today the “new Kona courthouse is a vibrant hub dispensing justice.”
Recktenwald noted that exactly half of Hawaii’s full-time judges are women, up from about 30% when he started.
He is proud of how the
Judiciary executes its core mission of deciding cases “fairly and efficiently,” pointing out that trial courts resolve an average of more than 30,000 criminal cases, more than 18,000 civil cases, more than 13,000 family court cases and hundreds
of thousands of traffic and parking cases every year.
The COVID-19 pandemic and the Aug. 8, 2023, Maui fires “severely tested” the Judiciary’s ability to respond and adapt, but Recktenwald lauded attorneys, judges and staff for embracing remote proceedings.
“Since then we have held over 800,000 remote proceedings, an astonishing transformation of how we do business … which has made our courts more
accessible.”
He praised the efforts to keep justice moving on Maui in the aftermath of the fatal fires and recognized the more than 300 attorneys who volunteered to offer support to desperate fire victims.
Recktenwald detailed significant efforts to provide access to justice for people who can’t afford attorneys, pointing out a pilot program in Hilo that allows paralegals supervised by licensed attorneys to represent clients in paternity cases.
“As I look back at my time at the Judiciary, I realize that the most powerful lessons I have learned are the simplest,” Recktenwald said. “Do what’s right. Don’t forget your roots. Speak up for people who don’t have a voice. Treat everyone with respect. These are the values that guide what we do at the Judiciary every day … and will serve as a shining beacon for our future.
“The law shouldn’t be an abstraction. It should always be about helping people find justice. It should be applied evenly to all, no matter if you are wealthy and powerful or on the outside looking in. It should be about ensuring voices are heard and that everyone will get a fair shake when they walk into one of our courtrooms. That’s the promise of ‘justice for all,’ and I am proud to be part of an institution that works every day to make that promise a reality.”
