Hawaii Supreme Court Issues ‘Unhinged Attack’ on ‘Roberts Court’

Some constitutional law analysts say justices on Hawaii’s highest state court have “lost their minds” with a lengthy diatribe about the United States Supreme Court.Hawaii’s Supreme Court Justice Todd Eddins delivered harsh criticism for the Nine in a recent majority decision he penned that overturned a 1990 Hawaii kidnapping and rape conviction. Justice Eddins said Hawaii’s courts should not look at the federal Supreme Court while interpreting the state constitution.Daniel Granillo was convicted after the prosecution used an FBI agent as an expert witness on hair and fiber evidence. The agent, Wayne Oakes, testified that a hair sample found in Granillo’s car had the same microscopic characteristics as a sample taken from the victim’s head. He also testified that fiber samples found in the victim’s underwear and on her pants were “consistent with” coming from Granillo’s car seat cover.Nearly 30 years after the conviction, the Justice Department sent a letter to the Maui county attorney stating that the FBI had determined that Mr. Oakes’ testimony was “inappropriate” because it overstated the statistical weight that can be assigned to microscopic hair comparisons and the testimony had “exceed[ed] the limits of the science.”The Hawaii justices stated that Granillo’s due process had been violated because there was a “reasonable possibility” that false evidence contributed to the conviction.“The United States Supreme Court long ago established that a conviction obtained through false evidence violates due process,” Justice Eddins wrote.About three-quarters of the way through the 91 page opinion, Justice Eddins suddenly turned his attention to a broad attack on the current members of the United States Supreme Court. Justice Eddins referenced an April decision that rejected a Louisiana redistricting that created a majority-black voting district, saying it was an “unconstitutional racial gerrymander.”“The Roberts Court sees only white,” Justice Eddins wrote. “The Court calls the Constitution colorblind while engineering the dilution of Black votes, the unraveling of hardfought civil rights remedies, and the erasure of Black history. That is not blindness. That is white sight, by design,” Justice Eddins continued.Justice Eddins claimed that the Roberts court originalist constitutional approach is similar to previous thinking that led to the infamous Dred Scott v. Sandford decision that denied citizenship to black Americans and the Plessy v. Ferguson decision that upheld segregation.Justice Eddins’s decision came just weeks after the Supreme Court struck down an onerous Hawaii gun law that was so broad it essentially banned legal owners from carrying handguns anywhere.In a 6-3 decision in Wolford V. Lopez, the conservative majority found Hawaii’s law was “presumptively unconstitutional.” “This regime hobbles what the Second Amendment protects: the right of Americans to carry arms for self-defense as they go about their daily lives,” Justice Samuel Alito wrote in delivering the opinion.The Hawaii Supreme Court argued the state’s history was inconsistent with the Second Amendment and it interprets the federal Constitution based on the unique legal history of the state.“In Hawai’i, the Aloha Spirit inspires constitutional interpretation,” Justice Eddins wrote in a decision that the United States Supreme Court rejected.“The judges in Hawaii have lost their minds. They think that they’re in this sort of holy crusade against the U.S. Supreme Court,” South Texas College of Law Houston constitutional law professor Josh Blackman told the Sun.Mr. Blackman said the opinion is filled with A.I. “slop evidence.”“It’s just wild. He did this in a case that had nothing to do with the Roberts court, nothing to do with the 2nd Amendment, nothing to do with anything,” Mr. Blackman said.Justice Eddins also took issue with the Supreme Court’s June decision on campaign financing. “The Roberts Court has made sure one’s wealth counts more than another’s vote,” Justice Eddins wrote.Justice Eddins then claimed the Hawaii Constitution takes precedence over any Supreme Court decision and the justices are “doing what state constitutionalism asks us to do. Stand our ground.”“Our constitutional system was designed for times like these. Federalism is not a formality. It is the architecture. The framers built dual sovereignty into the structure of American government as an independent check against concentrated federal power,” Justice Eddins wrote.Mr. Blackman said judges in Hawaii are trying to shape what the law is and “no one outside Hawaii cares.”Mr. Blackman is not alone in his criticism of the broadside on the Roberts court. “…the Court issues an unhinged attack on the legitimacy of the Supreme Court. I haven’t ever seen something like this. And it’s not good,” Iowa solicitor general, Eric Wessan, said in an X post.“The Hawaii Supreme Court just issued a disgraceful attack on the United States Supreme Court that paints the majority as enemies of constitutional rights as well as presumptive racists,” George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley said in an X post. “It is an appalling departure from judicial restraint and decorum,” Mr. Turley added.“This is nothing more than an unserious screed rather than a reasoned opinion,” Mr. Turley said in a follow up post.

Hawaii Supreme Court Issues ‘Unhinged Attack’ on ‘Roberts Court’

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