Senate Confirms Newly Appointed Family Court Judge on Kaua‘i

The Hawai‘i State Senate in their second special session of 2020 has confirmed the judicial appointment of Stephanie R.S. Char to the District Family Court of the 5th Circuit.

Additionally, the Senate confirmed the appointment of 1st Circuit Court Judge Todd Eddins to the Hawaiʻi State Supreme Court. Eddins will replace Associate Justice Richard Pollack who retired in June after reaching the mandatory retirement age of 70, leaving a vacancy on the State’s highest court.

“After careful consideration by members of the Judiciary Committee and the entire State Senate, I’m confident that both Justice Eddins and Judge Char will serve our communities well in their new roles on the State Supreme Court and the District Family Court of the 5th Circuit,” stated The Chair of the Senate Committee on Judiciary, Sen. Karl Rhoads (Dist. 13).

Char spent her legal career as a public defender in the State Office of the Public Defender, primarily on Kaua‘i, since 2003; most recently she served as a Supervising Deputy Public Defender. She is active in the Kauaʻi and legal communities, having been a member of the Kauaʻi Criminal Defense Bar, the Kaua‘i Economic Opportunity Advisory Board for Mediation Program, and the Hawai‘i State Board of Continuing Legal Education.

Char graduated from Kapa‘a High School and received her undergraduate and master’s degrees from the University of Denver and her law degree from the University of San Diego Law School.

Eddins served as a judge of the 1st Circuit Court since 2017, where he primarily presided over criminal cases. Prior to that appointment, he was in private practice handling criminal, civil, and appellate cases for thirteen years. Previous to that, he was a Deputy Public Defender in the State Office of the Public Defender from 1992 to 2004. At the beginning of his legal career, Eddins was a law clerk for then-Associate Justice Yoshimi Hayashi of the Hawaiʻi Supreme Court.

Justice Eddins is a graduate of Hawaiʻi Baptist Academy, the College of William & Mary, and the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa William S. Richardson School of Law.