Justice Todd Eddins was appointed to the Hawaii Supreme Court in 2020 after spending three years as a state circuit court judge. Eddins was also previously a public defender, a background that remains unusual for state supreme court justices and one that influences how he views cases and his overall approach to being a justice.
Eddins approach to writing opinions is notable; he strives to make them readable for an audience beyond legal experts. At times, the national press has taken note of Eddins’s taking to task the current conservative majority of the U.S. Supreme Court for what he believes is the improper stripping of fundamental rights and their adhering to an “outcome-oriented” approach to case analysis.
Eddins is quick to speak on Hawaii’s rich and progressive history, including that its palace — the only royal residence in the United States — had electricity before the White House. The interview was edited for length and clarity.
Was being a judge your goal when you were in law school or at the beginning of your legal career?
I arrived at law school with a public service instinct and no clear path. I took a defense clinic and that pulled me toward the courtroom; the action and the trial work appealed to me. I envisioned myself as a trial lawyer, and in no way did I consider the judicial path. But I did see myself clerking — it’s a once-in-a-career opportunity. I did a clerkship here at the Hawaii Supreme Court. I became a public defender after my clerkship. It wasn’t until very late in my career that I decided to take a judicial path.
Public defenders are underrepresented on state supreme court benches. How does that background affect your judicial work?
Typically, judges come from the attorney general ranks and prosecutor ranks and large law firm ranks. The insight of a public defender is rooted in understanding the lives of people who you might not normally meet — their daily challenges. The idea of representing the underdog and the powerless is a quality that informs solid judicial decision-making. There’s been a tendency from our federal courts at the top levels to favor the powerful over the powerless. If judges and justices have that different perspective, it provides a humane way to look at the law.
What do you enjoy about being a state court judge?
It’s a chance to make a positive difference in the lives of people in my home state. This is the best job in the legal community — it’s an intellectual feast. You’re hearing cases across all areas of the law, and you have these “aha moments” when you have cracked open the case. It’s a joy.
But also, we have the freedom to decide Hawaii cases on Hawaii grounds. It goes back to state constitutionalism and our subnational structure of government and federalism principles and dual sovereignty. That structure provides us the freedom to interpret these meaty matters differently than the U.S. Supreme Court.
That is one of the deep pleasures of my job. State judges do not need to live in a never-never land of imagined historical consensus where the federal Constitution refuses to grow up and the country never grew up. We don’t need to time travel and cherry-pick history from an era when women, people of color, native peoples had no say. Federal judges have no control over the outlook of the Hawaii Constitution and the statutes that we interpret. We do not have to play on the artificial turf that the Roberts Court has patched together. Hawaii can plant its own real grass.
I also like working with my law clerks and I really care about mentoring and the craft of judicial-decision making. Those are some quiet joys of this job.
Are there state constitutional questions that need to be raised in Hawaii, or parts of your constitution that need to be developed?
We have a constitutional tradition in our state such that practitioners know to raise the constitutional issues under the state grounds. We have a primacy approach where we don’t reach the federal Constitution if our state constitution’s provisions are applicable. The famous Justice William Brennan 1977 law review article [on using state constitutions to protect rights] gave a shout out to our state. We understood virtually from the beginning of state hood that we can go our own way.
It’s not that we discard history and tradition, but it’s not the only way to interpret a constitution. Hawaii was a sovereign nation until 1893 when it was overthrown in a coup, and there was a rich legal tradition. The 1852 constitution of the Kingdom of Hawaii banned slavery. That’s our history. We have a tradition of our own, and it’s older than the 13th and the 14th Amendments as far as ending human bondage. That respect for each and every human being flavors constitutional interpretation in Hawaii.
Our marriage equality case in the early ’90s was a catalyst to recognizing a basic human right. And our state constitution has such rich provisions. We have public trust doctrine, related not just to our water — it’s land, air, all natural resources, natural beauty. We have a right to a clean and healthful environment, and we have interpreted that right to encompass the right to a stable climate system. We have provisions that protect the traditional and customary native Hawaiian rights, so our indigenous people are protected. We have a right to travel and to peace and tranquility. We have interpreted our Due Process Clause to be versatile and agile, not frozen in time. We also imbue our constitutional provisions with the Aloha Spirit. That’s by statute. Our court can use the Aloha Spirit to guide itself in constitutional interpretation.
How do justices think about applying the Aloha Spirit?
Anybody who’s ever traveled to Hawaii understands the Aloha Spirit. It’s the welcoming nature of the people who live here. There’s humility, there’s patience. It’s essentially a kindness generated where all people are treated with dignity, all people and nature are respected — that’s the Aloha Spirit. How do we flavor that in our interpretation of various constitutional provisions? Generally speaking, it’s your open-ended liberty, respect-for-dignity flavor that imbues the Aloha Spirit.
Which opinions that you’ve participated in are particularly memorable?
Every case is someone’s case, so they’re all important. But obviously some stick out. One aspect of state constitutionalism and state sovereignty is justiciability issues. The federal Supreme Court is narrowing access to justice through standing doctrines and ripeness doctrines. We have cases that open the door to litigants to decide cases on the merits. Some really nice justiciability cases sometimes fly under the radar because they’re not as sexy, but that have a great deal of importance in allowing people’s legal issues to be decided.
Granillo v. State was a case where discredited scientific evidence was used to convict a person. We basically said that the accused is entitled to a new trial when false scientific evidence has been presented. If I didn’t have the defense background, I don’t know the decision would’ve necessarily gone that way.
The climate case, In re Hawai’i Electric Light Company, is very important. We’re an island state and climate change really resonates with us. Dovetailing with that case, we had a case called City and County of Honolulu v. Sunoco, which is really a personal-jurisdiction-over-fossil-fuel-companies case. [Ed. note: The court also ruled the federal Clean Air Act did not preempt the plaintiffs’ claims.] Those two are cases that respect nature’s dignity and the import of recognizing that climate change is really affecting nations and people.
Other cases garnered a lot of national attention. One is State v. Wilson, the Second Amendment case, where we basically played on the U.S. Supreme Court’s field and showed how the text, history, and purpose of the Second Amendment really did not allow a freewheeling right to carry lethal weapons in public for possible self-defense. That one also, I think, showed the flaws in originalism and how it is a very bad way to interpret the Constitution.
