Supreme Court Justices Slammed by Judge: ‘Incredibly Dishonest’

Todd Eddins, a Justice on the Hawaii Supreme Court, criticized the U.S. Supreme Court for being “incredibly dishonest”.

The Supreme Court has been under scrutiny by legal experts for its decisions on issues like abortion rights, with critics accusing the conservative justices of disregarding precedent.

Additionally, the court has been embroiled in ethics scandals, leading to the adoption of an ethics code in November last year. Recent polls indicate a decline in public support for the Supreme Court.

A Gallup survey in September 2023 revealed that only 41 percent of Americans approve of the court’s performance, while 58 percent disapprove. This marks a shift from September 2018 when 51 percent approved and 40 percent disapproved. Todd Eddins, appointed to Hawaii’s top court by former Democratic Governor David Ige in 2020, has expressed disapproval of some of the court’s rulings in his legal writings.

He has particularly criticized the conservative justices’ “originalist” approach to interpreting the law, as seen in his dissent in the case State v. Wilson, where he diverged from the court’s stance on the Second Amendment.

According to the National Constitution Center, originalism is the principle that “the constitutional text ought to be given the original public meaning that it would have had at the time that it became law.” In a recent interview with Slate released on Tuesday, Eddins expressed his dissatisfaction with the Supreme Court.

He mentioned that he believes the justices “cherry pick history” when they choose historical facts to support their decisions, condemning originalism for resurrecting “the value judgments of a racist, misogynistic, homophobic society and constrains the value judgments of contemporary judges.”

Crafting the Wilson verdict was a “pretty fun process because the U.S. Supreme Court has ‘totally disregarded the text, history, tradition, and purpose of the Second Amendment’ in their rulings on gun rights,” he said.

“So in Wilson, we decided to play on the originalism playing field and show how the justices were incredibly dishonest about how law and facts are cherry-picked. That was not a difficult thing to do,” he said.

Interestingly, the constitution of Hawaii contains language that parallels the U.S. Constitution, stating, “A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”

Although the Supreme Court has interpreted the Second Amendment as granting individuals the right to bear arms, Eddins expressed in his ruling that he views it as being more focused on militias, as reported by Reuters. He wrote, “Those words do not support a right to possess lethal weapons in public for possible self-defense.”