How do judges of the Hawaii Intermediate Court of Appeals reach the bench?

The court's current selection method is gubernatorial appointment.

Hawaii Intermediate Court of Appeals / Joined 2009 / Active

Craig H. Nakamura

Judge, Hawaii Intermediate Court of Appeals

Craig H. Nakamura is a Judge of the Hawaii Intermediate Court of Appeals, serving since 2009. Opinions & record ↓ Sources ↓

Tenure: Since 2009 · 16 yrs

Judicial service

Year	Court	Appointed by	Vote
2009	Hawaii Intermediate Court of Appeals	–	–

Education

Harvard University

Judicial Record

In our data, Nakamura authored 197 published opinions for the court (2006–2018), plus 4 dissents and 6 concurrences. Most cited: State v. Hern (18 citations).

Published, precedential opinions from the CourtListener corpus. Counts and rankings are objective and recomputable: how we count. We describe the record, not the judge. 53 of these were attributed to Nakamura by a unique court-, date-, and surname-match against our roster (marked ), because CourtListener recorded no author for them. Each links to the official text to verify. How we match.

Selected opinions

Year	Case	Citation	Cited
2013	State v. Hern†	133 Haw. 59	18
2014	State v. Yong Shik Won†	134 Haw. 59	17
2012	Pavsek v. Sandvold†	127 Haw. 390	14
2010	Mikelson v. United Services Automobile Ass'n	227 P.3d 559	14
2010	Queen Emma Foundation v. Tatibouet	236 P.3d 1236	13
2010	State v. Torres	222 P.3d 409	11
2009	State v. Nicholson	210 P.3d 3	11
2016	State v. Tran†	138 Haw. 298	10
2013	McGrail v. Administrative Director of the Courts†	130 Haw. 74	9
2018	State v. Magbulos†	413 P.3d 387	8
2014	State v. Kam†	134 Haw. 280	8
2011	Low v. MINICHINO	267 P.3d 683	8
2011	Baker v. Bielski	248 P.3d 221	8
2009	State v. Tuialii	214 P.3d 1125	8
2008	Suzuki v. State	196 P.3d 290	8

Showing the 15 most-cited of 207 authored opinions in our data. “Cited” is inbound citations across the CourtListener corpus. Case links open the ruling’s full text (CourtListener) or its page here; read the methodology and verify against the primary source.

Questions & answers

How do judges of the Hawaii Intermediate Court of Appeals reach the bench?: The court's current selection method is gubernatorial appointment.
Which court is Craig H. Nakamura on?: Craig H. Nakamura is a Judge of the Hawaii Intermediate Court of Appeals.

Sources

Each fact on this page traces to a primary public record.

How we source & reconcile data → Data & Sources

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16 years on the Hawaii Intermediate Court of Appeals. Data as of 2026-03-31. Informational only; verify against the primary source before relying. Not a consumer report (FCRA).