Who’s judging Hawaii’s judges? The job goes partly to a banker, a businesswoman, a university dean and several retirees, among others. They’ve been appointed by Chief Justice Ronald Moon of the State Judiciary to help counsel judges on their courtroom
Who’s judging Hawaii’s judges? The job goes partly to a banker, a
businesswoman, a university dean and several retirees, among
others.
They’ve been appointed by Chief Justice Ronald Moon of the State
Judiciary to help counsel judges on their courtroom work, as recorded in
performance evaluations of Hawaii’s 11 circuit court judges. Eighteen more
judges in family and district courts will be evaluated in the same way this
year.
Whether individual judges are performing badly or not won’t
necessarily become public knowledge, however. Moon plans to keep the scores of
the judges confidential. He believes public disclosure could compromise
judicial independence and attitudes if judges become concerned over their
ranking and popularity.
To help him evaluate the judges, Moon has appointed
nine “respected persons in the community” from a list of nominees provided by
the Judicial Performance Committee. The appointees are Robert Alm, executive
vice president of First Hawaiian Bank; Momi Cazimero, owner of Graphic House;
Lawrence Foster, dean, and Eric Yamamoto, professor, both of University of
Hawaii’s Richardson School of Law; Lynne Kaneshiro, president of Island Title
Corp.; retired Family Court judges Douglas McNish and Betty Vitousek; Wilson
Moore, a retired lawyer; and Herbert Shimabukuro, a retired Circuit Court
judge.
The appointees surely will take their tasks seriously and lend
whatever wisdom and counsel they can to the current judges. But the committee’s
goal, as stated by Moon, of promoting “public trust and confidence in the
courts” seems at least slightly compromised by lack of disclosure of judges’
evaluations.
