Todd W. Eddins

Todd W. Eddins (born March 18, 1964) is an American lawyer who has served as an associate justice of the Hawaii Supreme Court since 2020. He previously served as a judge of the O'ahu First Circuit Court of Hawaii from 2017 to 2020.

Education Eddins received his Bachelor of Business Administration from the College of William & Mary in 1986 and he received his Juris Doctor from the William S. Richardson School of Law at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa in 1991. While attending law school, Eddins was Executive Editor of the University of Hawaii Law Review.

Legal career After graduating law school, he served as a law clerk for Justice Yoshimi Hayashi of the Hawaiʻi Supreme Court. The jury acquitted Law in less than ten minutes, prompting Eddins to denounce what he called "the most outrageous, reprehensible prosecution in recent memory." Supporters in the courtroom cried when the jury found Kenoi not guilty. Dadow was released after a judge found there was no probable cause for the murder charge. Eddins defended Aiwohi and argued that a mother could not be prosecuted for conduct that harmed a fetus because a fetus was not a person. Eddins warned that if a mother can be prosecuted for conduct toward a fetus, then a mother could be criminally charged for caffeine or tobacco use while pregnant. The court agreed with Eddins, holding that under Hawai‘i law, a person is a "human who has been born and is alive." The state promised to keep the land in agriculture use. In 1988, leases were handed out to families who lived and farmed there. In 2004, Eddins represented the Waiāhole-Waikāne Community Association as the state threatened to evict residents who failed to meet the terms of the state lease. For some families, their only violation was failing to build on the land, and the state required them to post a bond worth 100% of the cost of constructing a house. The residents had been trying to build a house on the land, but had been unable to secure the loan they required to do so, as they had not been allowed to buy the leasehold interest. At the time, Governor Linda Lingle's administration wanted to turn over management of the valleys to the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands.

Judicial career Circuit Court (2017-2020) On February 9, 2017, Governor David Ige appointed Eddins to be a Circuit Judge of the First Circuit Court to fill the vacancy left by the retirement of Judge Richard K. Perkins in June 2016. Eddins became a Circuit Judge on April 7, 2017. His service on the Circuit Court terminated when he was sworn in as an associate justice of the Hawaiʻi Supreme Court. Known as a workhorse, Eddins presided over 85 jury trials and 21 jury-waived trials during his three years as a Circuit Court judge.

State v. Char In 2016, Mark Char was found guilty of three counts of attempted murder for a triple stabbing on a freeway during a road rage incident. The relatively straightforward case drew national attention when Char wore blackface to his sentencing in 2019. McCoy yelled at Eddins, “Dude, make your ruling and I’m going to fight it,” and "You’re a loser, just like everybody else." Eddins finally had a deputy sheriff remove McCoy, after which McCoy accused him of racism. He continued yelling “You’re a racist” as he was dragged out of court. On October 23, 2020, Governor David Ige announced Eddins as his appointment to the Hawaii Supreme Court to fill the vacancy left by the retirement of Richard W. Pollack. On November 19, 2020, he was confirmed in the Hawaii Senate by a vote of 25–0. He was sworn in on December 11, 2020.

In 2026, Eddins wrote an acerbic opinion asserting the sovereignty of the Hawaii Constitution and the Hawaii Supreme Court's authority to interpret it separately from the Supreme Court's interpretation of the United States Constitution. He accused the Roberts Court of seeing only "white" and dismantling the Voting Rights Act.