Mark Recktenwald reflects on 15 years as Hawaiʻi Supreme Court chief justice
By Catherine Cruz
September 30, 2025 at 3:11 PM HST
Who wants to be chief justice? The current head of the Hawaiʻi State Supreme Court, Mark Recktenwald, took the unusual step of naming his own interim replacement when two tries at drawing the minimum four candidates failed.
Tuesday was his last day on the job. He turns 70 next week — the mandatory retirement age. He spoke to HPR that morning.
Over his 15 years of public service as chief justice, he has been championed for hiring additional judges and boosting their pay. The Conversation also recently featured the specialty courts Recktenwald helped to expand: drug, veterans and mental health courts, as well as women’s and girls courts.
But it was a highly unusual and powerful statement that the Hawaiʻi court issued six months ago that reaffirmed its commitment to justice for all in these trying times that we wanted to learn more about.
Interview highlights
On his interim replacement
CHIEF JUSTICE MARK RECKTENWALD: Justice Sabrina McKenna is going to become the chief justice tomorrow, and that's by operation of law, so the next most senior person on the court becomes chief justice. But we're very fortunate because she's been our most senior judge in the Judiciary. She's served in almost every court in our court system, and she's going to do a wonderful job. So I'm super excited that she'll be able to fill in until a permanent chief justice is selected.
On the selection process
RECKTENWALD: An organization called the Judicial Selection Commission puts together a list of potential nominees, in this case, for the governor, and by law, they're required to have four qualified names on that list, and what I gather is not enough people have applied for them to be able to fill out a list of four folks that they're comfortable with. So they've twice now reopened the position and are encouraging attorneys who have the requisite skills and expertise to apply. So I'm hopeful that this time, we'll get enough folks to apply, and they'll be able to put together and forward a list to Gov. Green for him to select.
On the court's 'Equal Justice for All' statement
RECKTENWALD: Well, you know, for sitting judges, we had to be very careful in terms of not taking a position on politics, certainly, or really even on policy matters or issues that might be in another court. But what we did feel comfortable doing is affirming our sort of bottom line commitment to ensuring that here in Hawaiʻi, the rule of law will be respected, that we encourage and value a diverse Judiciary, and we encourage and want to show respect for everyone who comes into our courts, and really, to just reaffirm our commitment to the rule of law. And so that was something that we thought very carefully about. And to me, the places where sitting judges can speak up relate to how the administration of justice occurs, as opposed to taking a policy position on some of the issues that are obviously in the media constantly. I think that judges who are not on the court that are hearing those matters, really shouldn't be weighing in. It's not a popularity contest — we're not taking a vote among all judges in the United States as to how they feel. But judges should speak up and talk about how the system needs to operate and how the integrity of the system needs to be defended. So it's really important that we have lawyers who are willing to take on unpopular cases, for example, and that we have judges who are unafraid to rule in accordance with the law, even if that might be politically unpopular or unpopular with a large number of folks in the public. We have to call it like we see it. So those fundamental principles are what we were trying to reaffirm.
On providing language access to the courts
RECKTENWALD: That was something that's been very important here. And again, it sort of reflects the unique position of Hawaiʻi as a state that has two official languages, both ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi and English, and reaffirmed our commitment to allowing people who want to engage our court system in ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi to be able to do so. Whether it's having their own interpreter, or whether it's the court providing them with an interpreter, and whether they speak English or not, they have the option to communicate with the court in the language in ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi, if that's their choice. … But here in Hawaiʻi, we have two official languages, and we also have a vast diversity of folks speaking other languages who come before our courts, and that's been a huge commitment, is to make sure that each and every person who does business with us or is appearing in court, we accommodate them by making sure that we have interpreters, qualified interpreters, readily available, so they can communicate with us in whatever their primary language is. So we thought that was important to affirm as well.
On the impacts of decision-making
RECKTENWALD: We know the impacts that some of our decisions will have, but in the end, we have to call it as we see it, based on the law, and that's why judicial independence is so important. You need judges who are looking at the law, applying it evenly and fairly, and not looking over their shoulders, wondering about the political impacts of their decision and whether that might affect their job status or compensation or anything else. It doesn't mean we're unaccountable. We hold ourselves highly accountable for the quality of our work, and we have a lot of ways of trying to give input to our judges to make sure they do a good job, but the bottom line is, when a judge makes a decision, they should be doing it based on the law and the facts and not some perception of whether it's going to be popular or not.
This story aired on The Conversation on Sept. 30, 2025. The Conversation airs weekdays at 11 a.m. Hannah Kaʻʻulani Coburn adapted this interview for the web.
Tuesday was his last day on the job. He turns 70 next week — the mandatory retirement age. He spoke to HPR that morning.
Over his 15 years of public service as chief justice, he has been championed for hiring additional judges and boosting their pay. The Conversation also recently featured the specialty courts Recktenwald helped to expand: drug, veterans and mental health courts, as well as women’s and girls courts.
But it was a highly unusual and powerful statement that the Hawaiʻi court issued six months ago that reaffirmed its commitment to justice for all in these trying times that we wanted to learn more about.
Interview highlights
On his interim replacement
CHIEF JUSTICE MARK RECKTENWALD: Justice Sabrina McKenna is going to become the chief justice tomorrow, and that's by operation of law, so the next most senior person on the court becomes chief justice. But we're very fortunate because she's been our most senior judge in the Judiciary. She's served in almost every court in our court system, and she's going to do a wonderful job. So I'm super excited that she'll be able to fill in until a permanent chief justice is selected.
On the selection process
RECKTENWALD: An organization called the Judicial Selection Commission puts together a list of potential nominees, in this case, for the governor, and by law, they're required to have four qualified names on that list, and what I gather is not enough people have applied for them to be able to fill out a list of four folks that they're comfortable with. So they've twice now reopened the position and are encouraging attorneys who have the requisite skills and expertise to apply. So I'm hopeful that this time, we'll get enough folks to apply, and they'll be able to put together and forward a list to Gov. Green for him to select.
On the court's 'Equal Justice for All' statement
RECKTENWALD: Well, you know, for sitting judges, we had to be very careful in terms of not taking a position on politics, certainly, or really even on policy matters or issues that might be in another court. But what we did feel comfortable doing is affirming our sort of bottom line commitment to ensuring that here in Hawaiʻi, the rule of law will be respected, that we encourage and value a diverse Judiciary, and we encourage and want to show respect for everyone who comes into our courts, and really, to just reaffirm our commitment to the rule of law. And so that was something that we thought very carefully about. And to me, the places where sitting judges can speak up relate to how the administration of justice occurs, as opposed to taking a policy position on some of the issues that are obviously in the media constantly. I think that judges who are not on the court that are hearing those matters, really shouldn't be weighing in. It's not a popularity contest — we're not taking a vote among all judges in the United States as to how they feel. But judges should speak up and talk about how the system needs to operate and how the integrity of the system needs to be defended. So it's really important that we have lawyers who are willing to take on unpopular cases, for example, and that we have judges who are unafraid to rule in accordance with the law, even if that might be politically unpopular or unpopular with a large number of folks in the public. We have to call it like we see it. So those fundamental principles are what we were trying to reaffirm.
On providing language access to the courts
RECKTENWALD: That was something that's been very important here. And again, it sort of reflects the unique position of Hawaiʻi as a state that has two official languages, both ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi and English, and reaffirmed our commitment to allowing people who want to engage our court system in ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi to be able to do so. Whether it's having their own interpreter, or whether it's the court providing them with an interpreter, and whether they speak English or not, they have the option to communicate with the court in the language in ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi, if that's their choice. … But here in Hawaiʻi, we have two official languages, and we also have a vast diversity of folks speaking other languages who come before our courts, and that's been a huge commitment, is to make sure that each and every person who does business with us or is appearing in court, we accommodate them by making sure that we have interpreters, qualified interpreters, readily available, so they can communicate with us in whatever their primary language is. So we thought that was important to affirm as well.
On the impacts of decision-making
RECKTENWALD: We know the impacts that some of our decisions will have, but in the end, we have to call it as we see it, based on the law, and that's why judicial independence is so important. You need judges who are looking at the law, applying it evenly and fairly, and not looking over their shoulders, wondering about the political impacts of their decision and whether that might affect their job status or compensation or anything else. It doesn't mean we're unaccountable. We hold ourselves highly accountable for the quality of our work, and we have a lot of ways of trying to give input to our judges to make sure they do a good job, but the bottom line is, when a judge makes a decision, they should be doing it based on the law and the facts and not some perception of whether it's going to be popular or not.
This story aired on The Conversation on Sept. 30, 2025. The Conversation airs weekdays at 11 a.m. Hannah Kaʻʻulani Coburn adapted this interview for the web.