State Judge Shanlyn Park, who had spent most of her career as a federal public defender in Hawaii, has been nominated to a lifetime appointment on Hawaii’s federal bench.
Background
Shanlyn Alohakeao Souza Park was born in Honolulu in 1969. She received a B.A. from the Chaminade University of Honolulu in 1991 and her J.D. from the University of Hawaii William S. Richardson School of Law in 1995. After graduating, Park clerked for U.S. Magistrate Judge Francis Yamashita and then became an Assistant Federal Public Defender with the District of Hawaii in 1997. In 2017, she left to return to private practice in Honolulu.
Since 2021, Park has served as a Circuit Court Judge for the First Circuit for the State of Hawaii.
History of the Seat
Park has been nominated for a vacancy on the U.S. District Court for the District of Hawaii. This seat will open when Judge Leslie Kobayashi moves to senior status on October 9, 2024.
Legal Experience
For the vast majority of her career, Park worked as a federal public defender in Hawaii, representing indigent defendants in both misdemeanor and felony matters in federal court. Notably, Park represented a co-defendant in a murder case, where she was able to negotiate a 30 year sentence for her client with opposing counsel Jill Otake (who later joined the federal bench under President Trump). See United States v. Jackson, Cr. No. 15-00293 SOM-KSC (D. Haw.). Notably, Park also represented Jeffrey Drye, who was charged with abusive sexual contact and sexual assault in the first degree. Drye v. United States, Civ. No. 12-00355 JMS (D. Haw.). After his conviction, Drye filed a petition alleging, among other claims, that Park provided him with ineffective assistance of counsel. See id. Specifically, Drye alleged that Park was ineffective in allowing Drye to testify at trial, in failing to file an appeal, and in her representation at sentencing. Id. Judge J. Michael Seabright rejected all three contentions. On the first, he found that, while Park advised Drye to testify, that advice “was a reasonable, strategic choice.” See id. On the second contention, Seabright noted that Drye himself had declined to file an appeal and that Park would not have been able to help him on a petition suggesting that she herself was ineffective. See id. Regarding the sentencing, Seabright noted:
“The only conclusion these facts support is that Park provided Drye extremely competent representation that resulted in Drye receiving a lower sentence than he otherwise could have received.”
From 2017 to 2021, Park worked in private practice, working on commercial litigation, including mediations and arbitration. Notably, Park represented Kaluakoi Poolside, LLC. in a commercial arbitration involving a dispute over the maintenance of common areas of a shared commercial property. See The West Molokai Association of Apartment Owners v. Kaluakoi Poolside, LLC., Case No. 16-0033-A (Dispute Prevention & Resolution Hawai’i Inc.).
Jurisprudence
In 2021, Park was appointed to the First Circuit of Hawaii by Governor David Ige. She initially worked in the Family Court Division and then in 2023 shifted to the Criminal Division. Over the course of her tenure, Park has presided over 21 jury trials, all in criminal cases.
Overall Assessment
Park’s Judiciary hearing attracted relatively little attention, and there is little reason to believe that this will change through the confirmation process. With Judge Kobayashi’s departure from active status still a year away, Park is almost certain to be confirmed well in advance of the vacancy opening.
The Vetting Room 
Park combines progressive and traditional backgrounds. Since the vacancy won’t happen for a while, the vote may be delayed.
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Yes, I imagine the floor vote will be put on the backburner until next year
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WordPress has got to go. @Dequan told me he’s having issues commenting on this post. And I’m still having issues receiving new comments via e-mail even if I select that option.
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A 40 minute soundcloud interview with biden judge ana reyes on the dc district court, she jokes how she stuffed the commission plaque signed by the president and biden in the closet but the red sox jersey gift she got from a former client upon her confirmation to the bench got framed the same day she got it, basically joking how much of a red sox fan she is. She also spoke about her immigrant journey. She also spoke about seeing negative tweets about her confirmation calling her an ”affirmative action higher” she then spoke about the importance of diversity on the bench. She joked that there aren’t armies of gay hispanic lesbians taking over the federal bench.
She spoke about calling out law360 website article on one of her rulings.
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@aangren
Thanks for the link. I always like to hear when judges are honest about listening to what people say about them. And Ana Reyes seems like she’s pretty funny… Lol
For the record I gave her nomination an “A” so not sure why anybody thinks she is an affirmative action hire.
On another note Schumer just filed two cloture motions but none on judges. One for FAA Administrator & the other for a department of Labor Administrator of Wage & Hour Division.
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Schumer filed cloture on couple Executive nominations, but no judges on Thurs afternoon
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It looks like my comments are finally going through on this write up so I’ll copy/paste what I wrote this morning.
“I’ve said it before, the Hawaii senators have done a phenomenal job when it comes to judges. Under Trump, we got a right of center judge near 60 for the 9th circuit & a district court judge that probably could have been nominated by a Democrat president. Under Biden, we have gotten two stellar nominees. Smith was my first choice & Park is solid. I give her an A only because she’s not as young as I would like in a blue state with her being in her low 50’s. But I have no other complaints. She is a solid nominee.”
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So that’s it for this weeks judicial clotures, just wow. They might confirm a whole 10 nominees after 5 weeks in session.
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Haaaaaaa… I knew it. I knew it. Senator Murray just gave the wrap up for the week & she said Monday will only be a pro forma session. I knew there was no way in Hell these guys were working 5 straight FULL weeks. What a joke. They are lucky the Republicans are so bad. If they were even half ay decent, I would say Democrats don’t deserve the majority just off the amount of time off they take alone. When I vote, I vote AGAINST Republicans but I really wish Democrats would even pretend to care o I could vote FOR them.
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Also whomever updates the biden judges on the wiki page, can you update it to 108 instead of 107, it was updated to only count one of the two confirmations this week.
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I used to update Wikipedia almost hourly until a couple of idiots like the “letsrun” jerk off showed up & started pulling Wikipeida pages for judicial nominees down saying they weren’t “notable”. The asshole has dedicated his life to pulling down the pages until they are confirmed. No joke.
Do you know how worthless of a man you have to be to spend one hour, let alone months of your life trying to get Wikipedia pages for judicial nominees taken down. Somebody else on this blog later wrote after he succeeded in that, he moved on to getting beauty pageant pages taken down… Haaaaaaa
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Well, according to the calendar, senate was to be in most Mondays after the summer recess.
Like Dequan said in couple posts above, Republicans are that bad,, you see the absolute circus that is going on in the House. That party is no longer capable of governing in any way.
But come on senate Democrats work a Friday, confirm more than 2 judges in a week, do SOMETHING that shows you care about the courts.
SIGH
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It also shows them working on Fridays this week and next. What a joke.
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Haaaaaa… Yea I peeped that at the beginning of the year when the calendar came out. Every Friday is showing in session as if they are going to be there. A total joke. I wouldn’t even mind if they voted for cloture on a circuit court nominee every Thursday then used the Friday to burn the 30 hours of post cloture time to set up a confirmation vote the following Monday.
And I figured the trip to Israel was the reason they took Monday off. I still hold firm that regardless there was no way they were working 5 straight weeks including Monday’s. If there was world peace you better believe they would have found another reason to take a day or more off.
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Random question for you guys. Has Nancy Abudu been given her commission yet? Has it been signed yet? I keep going on the 11th circuit’s website and looking at their published opinions and I don’t see her name there. When I look at other circuits (like the 6th circuit with Mathis) I see their names listed by the opinion author or even the dissenting opinion. I just don’t see any signs of her being a judge at the moment.
Is it common for someone to delay the start of their judicial career this long? Is something going on behind the scenes that keep her from being sworn in and being assigned to appellate panels?
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she got her commission on May 26. Maybe the 11th circuit is slower to issue opinions than the other courts. Also keep in mind that the vast majority of opinions go unpublished (unpublished does NOT mean that they are kept secret; it just means that they are not precedental). Generally there is a way to find unpublished opinions on the court’s website.
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Click to access 202312701.pdf
here’s an unpublished opinion with Abudu on the panel
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As Ryan noted, Abudu has been an active judge for several months now. There was a great article I read a few months back that analyzed statistics showing how Biden judges have ruled on many fewer cases/sat on many fewer panels than judges from other recent presidents had at the equivalent point in their tenure. Just because Abudu hasn’t published any opinions though, doesn’t mean that she hasn’t had an impact on the 11th yet.
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Here’s a recent en banc case where Abudu was in the majority (all 5 liberals and 4/7 of the conservatives) –
Click to access 202010545.enb.pdf
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This seems to be the reason why the Senate scratched Monday: https://twitter.com/AndrewDesiderio/status/1715123479626854602
At least the Senate isn’t resuming at 5:30PM on the Tuesday? The next vote is scheduled for 2:15PM.
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At least they’re leaving for Israel tonight and not on Sunday night.
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I’ve been seeing this recently, and I’m quite confused about it. How does every single lawsuit related to a gun law in California that gets filed to the Federal Southern District seem to always go to Roger Benitez (who is a senior judge with reduced caseload), when there are over 20 other judges (both senior and active) on the District Court who could get the case?
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I saw his name and numerous articles of a California federal judge striking down the state’s gun laws and thought the exact same thing. I have no idea how it works in the SDCA in terms of assigning cases to active and senior federal judges. I was about to speculate that maybe the litigants file in a specific town/city to increase the odds of getting Judge Benitez to hear their case. But I just looked at Wikipedia and all of the senior and active judges in the SDCA have duty stations in San Diego, so there is no way to game the system. It’s even more head scratching because he’s a senior judge but he seems to always have a hot-button issue on his docket.
Can’t even say that I’m confident the 9th circuit will overturn that garbage decision, because the likelihood of drawing a random 3-judge panel of conservative appointees is higher than ever before. It’s just wild that HE’S gotten so much say over the state’s gun laws and the other roughly 100 active and senior judges in the state just get to sit idly by. Wild times
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In terms of the 9th Circuit, the Circuit usually decides to hear gun cases en banc (which tend to a higher chance of having majority liberal judges than 3 judge panels) if the 3 judge panel has a conservative ruling.
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Here is a copy & paste from one part of the Alliance for Justice weekly newsletter that was sent out yesterday…
“The Senate Judiciary Committee’s next nominations hearing will be Wednesday, November 1 at 10am ET. ‘Phenominee’ Professor Sarah Russell (D. Conn.) will be before the Committee. On faculty at Quinnipiac School of Law, Russell is accomplished in the arenas of both legal theory and practice. Her work representing disadvantaged individuals, such as indigent defendants and incarcerated people, does credit to our justice system.”
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Since the senate doesn’t return until Tuesday & no judicial nominations are coming up the pipe, I decided to take a look at some Bill Clinton circuit court nominees that never got confirmed who now have Republican judges sitting in the seat. I ran across Charles Stack (Link below) for the 11th circuit.
Stack was close friends with Bill Clinton but initially didn’t draw any controversy. But he couldn’t answer a question on the SCOTUS case “Adarand Constructors, Inc. v. Peña” (Link below) & Bod Dole used that as a campaign issue in the 1996 presidential race. Senator Kenedy must be proud… Lol
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Stack_(lawyer))
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adarand_Constructors,_Inc._v._Pe%C3%B1a)
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I’ve been keeping track of the circuit court seats Biden has, is about to, or has a chance of flipping. Here’s what it is right now:
1st CCA: 2 party nominated flips, 1 ideology flip, Biden flipped Juan Torruella’s seat from GOP nominated to Democratic nominated, but Torruella, despite being nominated by Reagan, was left-leaning, so it didn’t flip the ideology. However, conservative Bush Jr. nominee, Jeffrey Howard assumed senior status in March, 2022, and Biden is poised to flip the seat both party nominated and ideologically with Seth Aframe. This would create a unanimous 6 – 0 liberal majority.
2nd CCA: 2 ideology flips (with 1 being a party nominated flip) Biden flipped moderate conservative Bush Jr. nominee Peter Hall’s seat. Biden also flipped the ideology of Jose Carbranes’ seat as well. This in term created a 7 – 6 liberal majority.
3rd CCA: 1 flip, Biden flipped D. Brooks Smith’s seat. This temporarily made the Circuit evenly split 7 -7. Upon the confirmation of Joseph Greenaway’s successor, the even split will be restored.
6th CCA: 2 party nominated flips, 1 ideology flip, Biden flipped Helene White’s seat from GOP nominated to Democratic nominated, but White was nominated by Bush Jr. in a deal with Democratic senators and is liberal, so it didn’t flip the ideology. Julia Gibbons, a conservative Bush Jr. nominee announced her intent to assume senior status, and Biden is poised to flip the seat, both party nominated and ideologically. This would shift the court to a 9 – 7 conservative majority.
7th CCA: 2 party nominated and ideology flips. Biden flipped consevative Reagan nominee, Joel Flaum’s seat, and is poised to flip Michael Stephan Kanne’s seat with Joshua Kolar. This would shift the court to a 6 – 5 conservative majority.
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@CJ
Good analysis. I’m not too sold on how liberal Joshua Kolar will turn up but time will tell. He did work with senator Durbin many years ago so let’s hope.
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I do think Kolar will probably at least relatively moderate. But I still think he’ll be at least a bit left of center and generally vote along with the the court’s liberal bloc, which I would definitely consider a flip from the heavily conservative Michael Stephan Kanne.
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Once Kolar is confirmed, Amy St. Eve will be the swing vote (though the 7th circuit almost never goes en banc). St. Eve sometimes breaks from the other conservatives. Kolar will probably be the most moderate of the 5 liberal-leaning judges.
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Your analysis is pretty accurate. Arguably there were a few other half-flips from a moderate Democrat to a liberal Democrat (Graber to Sung is the most prominent example), but that would rest on the unclear assumption that all Biden judges are liberal.
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Good analysis overall. It’s worth noting that while the 7th. Circuit once had an 8-3 Republican majority, it wasn’t considered far right. Some of the Republican appointees in Illinois were compromise candidates.
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Before I knew the vetting room existed, I briefly joined a conservative group that focused on judges. I disagreed with them on policy but agreed that Trump was effective on appointing judges. The equivalent for the vetting room would be if a conservative came onto the vetting room and was fully transparent (i.e. they laughed at Senate Dems because of their laziness)
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Trump was most definitely effective ant appointing young conservative judges. If go back & fourth as to which Republican president was the best at it between him & Reagan. I still choose Reagan overall but he had 8 years versus Trump’s 4 years. But if I choose between either of Reagan’s terms only versus Trump, then Trump wins.
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There’s been a vacancy on EDPA since December 2021. It’s a blue state and Philly has tons of talent.
Thoughts on why it’s taking so long to get a nominee here?
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Has this week’s scheduled business meeting been up since last week? Currently, the only attendance concern would be whether or not Durbin is back from his surgery, otherwise I could see it getting cancelled again.
I swear the attendance issues for Senate Democrats this year remind me of an NFL injury list. When Fetterman was being treated for depression and came back after the Easter break I thought to myself “the Senate’s out for two weeks, maybe that’ll give time for Fetterman to return afterwards”, kind of like how NFL teams use bye weeks to try to get healthy, lol.
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I wish Dems would just approach Covid like Republicans. There’s no way none of them get Covid. They either aren’t testing or aren’t disclosing but they show up to vote. Just wear a mask, step onto the senate floor, hold your thumb up then leave. Too much at stake for only one side to have members miss a week for Covid. And that’s on top of other things like Durbin’s surgery, etc…
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The Democrats are going to be the party of health and safety, and as such they will take the necessary health precautions. No need for them to go down to the Republicans level.
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So upon looking at the upcoming SJC hearings for this week, most of the meetings, including the business meeting, have “TBD” as the presiding chair, so Durbin’s attendance is still up in the air for this week.
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Frank, do you have a link to the article about Biden judges hearing less cases and sitting on less panels? I’d be really interested as to why that is
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I also charted how much to the left or towards the center Biden would shift a seat on the 9th Circuit (some of these are based off of personal prediction).
Paez to Koh: Slight shift towards the center. Paez is one of the most liberal judges on the 9th CCA, and I think that Koh is also very liberal, but not quite as much as Paez.
Graber to Sung: A general shift towards the left. Graber, in my opinion, seems to be a general liberal. But I think Sung is one of the most liberal judges on the 9th CCA (at least out of those not in senior status).
Berzon to Sanchez: Quite a shift towards the center. Berzon is one of the most, if not the most outspoken liberal on the 9th CCA (after the passing of Reinhardt). And I think Sanchez will probably be a general liberal.
Fletcher to Holly Thomas: Slight shift towards to center. Basically the same situation as Paez to Koh.
Hurwitz to Desai: A slight shift to the left. I think that Hurwitz is quite liberal, and the most liberal Obama nominee still hearing cases on the 9th CCA. But I think that Desai has a more progressive background that suggests she would be a bit to the left of Hurwitz.
McKeown to Mendoza: A slight shift to the left. Basically a similar situation to Hutwitz to Desai, ideologically.
Sidney Thomas to Johnstone: Quite a shift towards the center. Sidney Thomas, while not as liberal as Berzon or Paez, is still very liberal. And I think that Johnstone will likely be more of a moderate liberal because of his work as General Solicitor in Montana (I know it was under a Democratic AG, but it’s still Montana), and his overall moderate demeanor in his confirmation hearings.
Watford to de Alba: A general shift towards the left. I actually asked about this on the sight before, and from what the response was that de Alba would shift Watford’s left of center seat towards being more progressive.
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I hope Holly Thomas ends up being just as, if not more liberal than Fletcher. Also it will be hard for Desai or anybody to be to the left of Hurwitz but I would love to see it. I still can’t believe he got on the 9th with two home state Republican senators.
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