A Hawaii Supreme Court justice used a criminal case opinion to deliver an extraordinary written attack on the U.S. Supreme Court, accusing the conservative majority of racism, dismantling democratic safeguards, and reviving the logic of the nation's most reviled rulings, then declared that Hawaii's constitution "takes no instruction" from the high court.
Justice Todd Eddins, appointed in 2020 by former Democratic Gov. David Ige, authored the 91-page majority opinion in State v. Granillo, a case involving a man convicted in 1990 of kidnapping and sexually assaulting a woman on Maui. The court ordered a new trial after concluding that hair and fiber evidence presented by an FBI expert relied on forensic science that has since been discredited.
That narrow forensic question could have been resolved in a fraction of the opinion's length. Instead, Eddins devoted roughly eight pages to a sweeping denunciation of Chief Justice John Roberts and the six-justice conservative majority, a passage that legal observers on both sides of the aisle have called unprecedented in its tone and scope. Fox News Digital reported on the opinion and the sharp reaction it provoked.
The most incendiary passage in Eddins' opinion compared the current Supreme Court's jurisprudence to two of the most condemned decisions in American legal history. He wrote:
"The Court that now defines federal due process does not honor the work of 1954. It revives the work of 1857. The work of 1896."
The references are unmistakable. The "work of 1954" is Brown v. Board of Education, which ended racial segregation in public schools. The "work of 1857" is Dred Scott v. Sandford, which denied citizenship to Black Americans. The "work of 1896" is Plessy v. Ferguson, which upheld racial segregation under the "separate but equal" doctrine.
In other words, a sitting state supreme court justice, writing for the majority, accused six justices of the nation's highest court of rolling back civil rights to pre-Civil War and Jim Crow standards. That is not a casual aside buried in a footnote. It is a deliberate, published accusation embedded in binding legal authority.
Eddins went further, accusing the Roberts Court of adopting a "colorblind" approach to equal protection that erases the clause's original purpose. As National Review documented, the opinion stated that the Hawaii court "takes no guidance on the meaning of due process" from the U.S. Supreme Court and called federal precedent "white noise."
"The Roberts Court sees only white. It refuses to acknowledge who the Equal Protection Clause was written to protect."
The opinion also took aim at originalism itself, calling the conservative majority's interpretive method a tool of control. "Today's hubristic originalists use the same method to control modern life," Eddins wrote.
Eddins' critique was not limited to race. The opinion cited a string of major Supreme Court decisions as evidence that the Roberts Court has expanded the power of government officials and wealthy interests while reducing protections for individuals. The cases named include Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, which overturned the federal constitutional right to abortion; Citizens United v. FEC, the landmark campaign finance ruling; Rucho v. Common Cause, which held that federal courts cannot adjudicate partisan gerrymandering claims; Trump v. United States, which addressed presidential immunity; and New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, which expanded Second Amendment protections.
The Supreme Court's recent term has produced no shortage of contentious rulings along ideological lines, including a 6-3 decision upholding Texas redistricting that handed Republicans a major electoral win.
Eddins also referenced Wolford v. Lopez, a 6-3 decision issued just weeks before his opinion. In that case, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Hawaii's requirement that gun owners obtain a property owner's permission before carrying a firearm into businesses and other private property open to the public. Hawaii had defended the law aggressively, and the ruling represented a significant setback for the state's gun-control regime. The Court's docket this term included several high-profile cases on guns, immigration, and other flashpoint issues.
The cumulative effect of Eddins' opinion reads less like judicial reasoning and more like a political manifesto. He wrote:
"The Court overrides what Congress passed. It overrides what the people chose. All to serve its own ends. What this Court has done to constitutional rights, democratic institutions, and the rule of law explains why Hawaiʻi's Constitution takes no instruction from it."
And then the declaration that has drawn the sharpest criticism:
"A court that systematically dismantles democratic safeguards, steamrolls constitutional liberties, and tramples human dignity does not chart the course for the Hawaiʻi Constitution."
Iowa Solicitor General Eric Wessan, one of the first legal officials to react publicly, posted his assessment on X:
"The Court issues an unhinged attack on the legitimacy of the Supreme Court. I haven't ever seen something like this. And it's not good."
Wessan's reaction, also noted by the New York Post, reflected a concern shared by other legal commentators: that a state supreme court justice openly declaring that his court will disregard U.S. Supreme Court guidance crosses a line from state constitutionalism into something closer to institutional defiance.
George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley offered a similarly blunt assessment on X:
"The Hawaii Supreme Court just issued a truly shocking opinion that unleashed a torrent of rage and recrimination against the majority of the United States Supreme Court, including suggesting that they are de facto racists."
Turley also described the opinion as "devoid of judicial restraint and decorum." The threat environment facing federal judges has been a growing concern, with Justice Barrett recently telling Congress that the threat level against judges "is really high." An opinion that accuses six Supreme Court justices of reviving the logic of Dred Scott does nothing to lower the temperature.
Eddins framed his critique as a defense of state constitutional independence, not an act of rebellion. He wrote:
"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 principle underlying this claim is real. State courts can and do interpret their own constitutions to provide broader protections than the federal floor. That is settled law. Nothing prevents the Hawaii Supreme Court from granting a new trial in State v. Granillo based on discredited forensic evidence under its own state constitutional standards.
But the eight pages of political commentary grafted onto that legal conclusion are a different matter entirely. The opinion does not merely assert Hawaii's independent constitutional authority. It accuses the U.S. Supreme Court of racism, compares sitting justices to the architects of Dred Scott and Plessy, and declares that the Roberts Court's jurisprudence amounts to "white noise" unworthy of consideration.
That is not state constitutionalism. That is a political broadside wearing a robe.
The distinction matters. State courts that disagree with federal precedent have every right to diverge under their own constitutions, and they do so routinely. But when a state court uses a criminal case opinion to deliver a nine-page denunciation of the U.S. Supreme Court's legitimacy, it invites a reasonable question: Is this court interpreting its constitution, or is it signaling to litigants, legislators, and the public that it will treat federal authority as optional?
The conservative frustration with certain Supreme Court outcomes has been real this term, but even the sharpest critics on the right have directed their complaints through legitimate channels, not through judicial opinions that compare sitting justices to the defenders of slavery.
Lost in the firestorm over Eddins' rhetoric is the actual case. A man identified as Granillo was convicted in 1990 of kidnapping and sexually assaulting a woman on Maui. The Hawaii Supreme Court concluded that the FBI expert who testified about hair and fiber evidence relied on forensic methods that have since been discredited. On that basis, the court ordered a new trial.
Whether that forensic conclusion is sound is a legitimate question. Discredited forensic techniques, including certain hair-comparison methods once widely used by the FBI, have been the subject of serious scrutiny nationwide. Courts across the country have grappled with the reliability of older forensic evidence, and some defendants have won new trials as a result.
But the merits of the forensic question are now overshadowed by the political content of the opinion. The ideological fault lines on the nation's courts are well documented, and few observers expect state courts to march in lockstep with federal precedent. What makes Eddins' opinion different is the raw hostility of its language and the breadth of its accusations.
Eight pages of a 91-page opinion, nearly a tenth of the document, served no purpose in resolving the forensic question before the court. They served a political purpose. And that is precisely the problem.
The opinion raises several unanswered questions. It is unclear whether the Hawaii Supreme Court's ruling was unanimous or split; the article does not identify which justices joined Eddins' majority. It is also unclear whether Eddins' rhetoric will provoke any formal response from the U.S. Supreme Court, the Hawaii legislature, or the state's judicial conduct authorities.
What is clear is that a sitting state supreme court justice, appointed by a Democratic governor, used a criminal case to accuse the U.S. Supreme Court of institutional racism, compare its rulings to Dred Scott and Plessy, and declare that Hawaii's courts will disregard its guidance. He did so not in a law review article, not in a speech, not in a dissent, but in a binding majority opinion that carries the force of law.
If a conservative state court justice had written eight pages comparing liberal Supreme Court justices to the architects of Korematsu or Roe, the legal establishment would have treated it as a five-alarm crisis. The double standard is familiar, but it does not make the conduct any less corrosive.
Courts derive their authority from the perception that they resolve disputes according to law, not ideology. When a justice uses a criminal opinion as a vehicle for political denunciation, he does not strengthen his court's independence. He weakens the public's confidence that any court, state or federal, is deciding cases on the merits rather than settling scores.
