How do judges of the Supreme Court of Hawaii reach the bench?

The court's current selection method is gubernatorial appointment.

Supreme Court of Hawaii / Joined 2009 / Active

Mark E. Recktenwald

Justice, Supreme Court of Hawaii

Mark E. Recktenwald is a Justice of the Supreme Court of Hawaii, serving since 2009. They previously served on the Hawaii Intermediate Court of Appeals. Opinions & record ↓ Sources ↓

Tenure: Since 2009 · 17 yrs

Judicial service

Year	Court	Appointed by	Vote
2007	Hawaii Intermediate Court of Appeals	–	–
2009	Supreme Court of Hawaii	–	–

Education

Harvard University
University of Chicago

Judicial Record

In our data, Recktenwald authored 324 published opinions for the court (2007–2019), plus 9 dissents and 30 concurrences. Most cited: Ralston v. Yim. ICA Opinion, filed 05/31/2012. (104 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. 159 of these were attributed to Recktenwald 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	Ralston v. Yim. ICA Opinion, filed 05/31/2012.†	129 Haw. 46	104
2010	State v. Kalaola†	237 P.3d 1109	99
2016	Greer v. Baker.†	137 Haw. 249	80
2018	Nozawa v. Operating Engineers Local Union No. 3.†	142 Haw. 331	67
2010	Davis v. Four Seasons Hotel Ltd.†	228 P.3d 303	61
2010	State v. Fitzwater.†	122 Haw. 354	61
2012	State v. Nesmith	276 P.3d 617	57
2018	Flores v. Board of Land and Natural Resources.†	143 Haw. 114	54
2012	First Insurance Co. of Hawaii v. a & B Properties, Inc.	271 P.3d 1165	53
2015	Mauna Kea Anaina Hou v. Board of Land & Natural Resources†	136 Haw. 376	51
2012	Kakinami v. Kakinami	276 P.3d 695	47
2012	State v. Cabagbag	277 P.3d 1027	46
2010	County of Hawai'i v. Ala Loop Homeowners†	235 P.3d 1103	45
2013	State v. Apollonio.· Concurrence†	130 Haw. 353	41
2014	Balogh v. Balogh†	134 Haw. 29	40

Showing the 15 most-cited of 363 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 Supreme Court of Hawaii reach the bench?: The court's current selection method is gubernatorial appointment.
Which court is Mark E. Recktenwald on?: Mark E. Recktenwald is a Justice of the Supreme Court of Hawaii.

Sources

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

How we source & reconcile data → Data & Sources

See something wrong? Report an error. Fixes are logged in the corrections log.

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