This month, the Doc is visiting Hawai’i, where he is studying how that state’s laws differ from laws on the mainland. The Doc is learning about the “Law of the Splintered Paddle”, about how the state with the most restrictive gun laws operates, and most recently, about how Hawaiian judges view the United States Supreme Court’s approach to fundamental Constitutional rights
On June 25, 2026, the United States Supreme Court struck down a Hawai’i law that required people who wanted to bring a gun on to private property to obtain the permission of the land owner before doing so. In Wolford v. Lopez, by a 6-3 majority, the Court did the opposite of what it had set forth in the earlier Bruen decision, namely, look to the history and tradition of the state that informs the scope of Constitutional rights. In Bruen, involving a New York law, the Court found, “Historical analysis can sometimes be difficult and nuanced, but reliance on history to inform the meaning of constitutional text is more legitimate, and more administrable, than asking judges to ‘make difficult empirical judgments’”. On that basis, the Court struck down New York’s over-100-year-old law regarding concealed carry of firearms.
In the Wolford case, the Hawai’i Supreme Court was careful to set out the history of gun laws in Hawai’i, tracing those laws all the way back to a royal decree of King Kamehameha the Great called the “Law of the Splintered Paddle”, which was promulgated in 1797, long before Hawai’i was a territory or a state. That law was incorporated into the Hawai’i Constitution as Article IX, Section 10, which states,
Public Safety. The law of the splintered paddle, mamala-hoe kanawai, decreed by Kamehameha I–Let every elderly person, woman and child lie by the roadside in safety–shall be a unique and living symbol of the State’s concern for public safety. The State shall have the power to provide for the safety of the people from crimes against persons and property.
Considering this history and constitutional provision, Justice Alito wrote, “The Second Amendment cannot give way to “the spirit of Aloha” in Hawaii.” The majority opinion thus placed the right to carry a loaded gun onto publicly-accessible property above the state’s power to provide for safety. Today, in Hawai’i, thousands of signs prohibiting the carrying of firearms are appearing at the entrances of businesses, public buildings, parks and other locations in response to the Supreme Court’s determination that permission must be withdrawn, rather than sought.
In an extraordinary recent opinion, Associate Justice Todd Eddins of the Hawai’i Supreme Court has now stated his view of how the originalist majority of the Supreme Court conducts its business.
When the Doc was in law school, the greatest sin a student could commit was to say that judges are outcome determinative; that is, that they decide what the result of the case should be, and then work backward and selectively to justify their desired result. This was the law school equivalent of “farting in a pew” and could get one a very bad grade. After all, law schools used the Socratic Method, where, after reading many judicial opinions, you were to deduce the underlying rationale and rule of law that knit the cases into a cohesive whole!
Contrary to the Doc’s law school experience, Justice Eddins took aim at the United States Supreme Court and let fly…
We interpret the Hawaiʻi Constitution on its own terms. The United States Supreme Court’s construction of the federal Due Process Clause does not define the protections of our state’s due process clause. This court “reason[s] independently, untethered from the Supreme Court’s analysis of the United States Constitution.” State v. Wilson, 154 Hawaiʻi 8, 14, 543 P.3d 440, 446 (2024).” Granillo v. Hawai’i, SCWC-22-0000740 15-JUL-2026.
He continues,
The Court that now defines federal due process does not honor the work of 1954 [Brown v. Board]. It revives the work of 1857 [Dred Scott]. The work of 1896 [Plessy v. Ferguson]. The Constitution must be interpreted “according to its true intent and meaning when it was adopted.” Dred Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. 393, 405 (1857).
What this [U.S. Supreme] Court has done to constitutional rights, democratic institutions, and the rule of law explains why Hawaiʻi’s Constitution takes no instruction from it. …This court does not anchor Hawaiʻi’s due process rights to the federal floor. Especially one that keeps sinking. We take no guidance on the meaning of due process from a court that gutted due process protections in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Org., 597 U.S. 215 (2022).”
Rulings run in one direction, time after time. Weakening protections for those with less power. Fortifying those with more. The pattern speaks for itself. A court that systematically dismantles democratic safeguards, steamrolls constitutional liberties, and tramples human dignity does not chart the course for the Hawaiʻi Constitution. Our constitutional system was designed for times like these. Federalism is not a formality. It is the architecture. The framers built dual sovereignty into the structure of American government as an independent check against concentrated federal power. A Supreme Court driven by agenda and intent on swiping power that belongs to the people is exactly what that check was built for. When six justices walk away from those they are supposed to protect, state constitutions hold the line. That is not defiance. That is the design.
The Doc will, as they say in college, “leave the remaining material to the interested reader.” The Granillo opinion is 91 pages, and most of it concerns granting a new trial when it is later learned that evidence used in a trial is no longer scientifically valid (an outcome that is extremely rare at the U.S. Supreme Court).
So much of law is “inside baseball”, fine points and small print, that when fundamental issues are exposed to bright sunshine the Doc has more faith in the legal system as a result. He hopes that you will feel the same.
Have a legal question that needs a clear answer? Give the attorneys at LW&H a shout. They’re good at explaining, and they get things done.
Until next month,
The “Doc”
— Lawrence A. Husick, Esq.