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Shanlyn Park will be the first Native Hawaiian woman to serve as a federal judge after the Senate voted 53-45 last week to confirm her for lifetime tenure as a U.S. district judge for the District of Hawai‘i.
Native Hawaiians have long been disproportionately impacted by the criminal justice system—especially in Hawai‘i. Park’s appointment, alongside greater Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander representation at the federal level, could change that.
- The newly-appointed Park was born and raised in Hawai‘i and worked as a state court judge in Oahu before serving in the district court. In her new role, Park will judge federal trials in Hawai‘i, including civil and criminal cases.
- District judges handle a variety of responsibilities, including overseeing the selection of juries, ruling on the admissibility of evidence, hearing pleas in criminal cases, and determining the sentence of a defendant if they are convicted.
- Park has over 20 years of experience as a federal public defender for the District of Hawai‘i. She will be the only judge currently serving a lifetime tenure in the District of Hawai‘i’s courts system to have had prior public defender experience.
Before Park,only four other Native Hawaiians had served as federal judges—all of whom were men, The 19th’s Candice Norwood notes.
- “For most of our nation’s history, being considered a ‘fair-minded, neutral judge’ has meant being White and male and having a very specific type of legal background,” Lena Zwarensteyn, a senior director at the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights told The 19th.
“To strengthen public trust in the judiciary, our courts should reflect the communities they serve,” the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights said in an October statement supporting Park’s confirmation.
- “Diversity of experience, both personal and professional, helps improve judicial decision-making. The confirmation of Judge Park would be an important step towards ensuring that our federal courts reflect and represent the diversity of our nation.”
State of play: Native Hawaiians are “much more likely to get a prison sentence than almost all other groups, except for Native Americans,” according to the Office of Hawaiian Affairs and the Justice Policy Institute.
- Almost half of the incarcerated women in Hawai‘i are Native Hawaiian. Yet only a fifth of the general population of women in Hawai’i identify as Native Hawaiian.
- Like many other Indigenous groups in the U.S., Native Hawaiians have high addiction and school dropout rates—in part due to cultural identity loss and Western education systems that promote assimilation to white culture, Charlotte West writes for Honolulu Civil Beat and Open Campus.
- Lack of social and emotional support can further contribute to the school-to-prison pipeline.
What we’re watching: A majority of federal judges appointed by the Biden administration have been women or racial or ethnic minorities—a first for any president, per an analysis of federal judicial data by Pew Research Center.
- Of the 145 judges President Joe Biden has appointed to the federal courts, roughly two-thirds are people of color, the analysis found.
This story appeared as “The Big Story” in The Yappie’s Dec. 5, 2023 newsletter.
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