Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 30, Number 6, 1 June 2013 — 'Fortunate and honored' to serve on the federal bench [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

'Fortunate and honored' to serve on the federal bench

By Kekoa Enomoīo AKamehameha Schools and Harvard University graduate has ascended to the U.S. District Court in Hawai'i as the only Native Hawaiian currently serving on the federal heneh. Honolulu native Derrick Kahala Watson said he felt "fortunate and honored" to have been nominated by President Barack Ohama to the lifetime judgeship and confirmed by the U.S. Senate on April 18. "I certainly feel proud to do the office and to do the court justice. I think by doing that I ' 11 do justice to the Hawaiian people," saidWatson, who served as an assistant U.S. attorney in Hawai'i since 2007. Although proud of his roots, Watson shied away from discussing Hawaiian-focused topics, such

as land, water and access issues, while affirming his intent to respect the rule of law. "I grew up in a Hawaiian family, in a Hawaiian school," said Watson, 46, a 1984 Kamehameha SchoolsKapālama alumnus. "I would think that that background was important to (the decision makers). It's certainly important to me, and it's part of who I am. "That said, am I going to go out of my way to ignore the law and to ignore the precedent that we're bound to follow, because I care about Hawaiian issues? That's not the pledge I took, and that's not my commitment to those who either nominated me or confirmed me." Watson is the fourth federal judge of Hawaiian descent in U.S. history, a group that includes Samuel King, a Nixon appointee who died in 2010.

Watson appreciated President Ohama nominating a Native Hawaiian to the federal heneh. "I think it's important for the Judiciary at all levels, not just the federal one, to reflect the population that it sits in," Watson said. "And so, whether it's Asian or hlaek or Native Hawaiian or otherwise, if you've got a community that is composed of all of those elements and of course many more, then I think it is important for the Judiciary to reflect that makeup. "To the extent that you're able, I think it is important to show the puhlie that people understand the issues that they face here in Hawai'i. I think it's important to be from the Islands, to have grown up here, to have been born and raised here. I think all are important factors. "I imagine that's one of the goals

the president is trying to achieve by selecting members and nominating members to the Judiciary of diverse backgrounds, and to try to remedy in some ways the situation that existed prior to him taking office," Watson said. He noted he was in the 1991 Harvard Law School class with Ohama, but never met the president because the class had numbered some 540. Watson attributed his pursuit of a legal career to a Kamehameha teacher, the late Leroy Bass, a former Army Airborne eolonel born in Mississippi of African- American descent. Bass had inspired Watson in sophomore or junior year "to the logic and reasoning of the law." During testimony before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, Watson paid tribute to the instructor's passion for "both social studies

as well as the more focused class, The Law." "He was the source of my interest in the law. ... We should all be as fortunate to have even one teacher at the secondary school level with that kind of impact on us," said Watson, the father of two sons, age 6 and 3. Thus, inspired by a teacher from the Deep South and nominated by an isle-born president, a son of Hawai'i now serves "the court and, more importantly, the people of the state." Watson added, "I hope to do them justice in the years to eome." ■

Kekoa Enomoto is a retired copy editor and staffwriter with The Maui News andformer Honolulu Star-Bul-letin.

NATIVE HAWAIIANS AT THE TOP OF THEIR GAME KULIA I K A NU'U STRIVE T0 REACH THE SUMMIT

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Derrick Kahala Watson - Courtesy photo