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One month after two attorneys publicly criticized the Hawaii Supreme Court for judicial overreach, the show heard from William S. Richardson, the Chief Justice most identified with the activist rulings, and Walter Heen, a former appellate judge. Richardson defended the shoreline boundary decisions of his court, arguing that Hawaiian tradition justified placing limits at the vegetation line rather than the historical surveyor's mark. Heen contended that the decisions criticized by Case and Ashford were products of a court appropriately responsive to real-world conditions, and that confusion surrounding native Hawaiian rights represented a natural stage in legal evolution rather than a defect. Both guests disputed the investment-backed expectations argument advanced by their critics, with Heen suggesting that non-native property owners complaining of sudden rule changes were experiencing something of what Hawaiians themselves had suffered since the 1848 imposition of fee-simple land title. Richardson acknowledged that personal values inevitably inform judicial reasoning but maintained that this does not make outcomes illegitimate. The standing question is whether judicial decisions shaped by a social equity agenda constitute illegitimate lawmaking or a proper exercise of judicial discretion.
Transcript
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Companion newspaper commentaries
Commentaries by the guests, published in The Honolulu Advertiser around the broadcast.
