Ronald T. Y. Moon

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Hawaii State Supreme Court Chief Justice Ronald T.Y. Moon.

1 Born:
2 Term:
3 Education:
4 Legal career:
5 Judicial career:
6 Family:
7 External Links

Born:

Sept. 4, 1940 in Honolulu.

Term:

1993-2003,
2003-2013

Education:

University of Iowa, juris doctorate;
Coe College, bachelor's degrees in psychology and sociology;
Mid-Pacific Institute.

Legal career:

Associate and partner, Libkuman, Ventura, Moon and Ayabe, 1968-82;
city deputy prosecutor, 1966-68;
law clerk for U.S. District Court Chief Judge Martin Pence, 1965-66.

Judicial career:

Appointed Hawai'i Supreme Court chief justice by Gov. John D. Waihee III, 1993; *appointed associate justice by Waihee, 1990;
appointed circuit judge by Gov. George R. Ariyoshi, 1982.

Family:

Married;
three children and three stepchildren.

According to a Honolulu Advertiser article by Lynda Arakawa, entitled Top jurists represent diverse backgrounds and dated 11-23-03:

"It was almost a fluke that Ronald Moon went into law. <p>After having taken little interest in school — he attended three different high schools — Moon wound up at college in Iowa, where a talk with a cousin attending law school and experiences of racial discrimination would pique his interest in the law. <p>Years later he would become Hawai'i's fourth Supreme Court chief justice since statehood and the first Korean American in the country to serve on a state supreme court. <p>Moon, who has a background as a prosecutor and as a defender of business and insurance companies, has been considered by some to have a conservative bent. But the former Republican dismisses labels.

He noted that attending church about three times a week as he was growing up made the 1993 same-sex marriage case a "real struggle for me." He was among the three justices who questioned the constitutionality of state laws banning same-sex marriage.

Moon, who has a penchant for telling a joke or two during judicial swearing-in ceremonies, has written his share of high-profile and controversial opinions.

He wrote the unanimous ceded- lands opinion in September 2001, which dismissed the state Office of Hawaiian Affairs' 1994 lawsuit seeking ceded-lands revenues, kicking the issue back to the Legislature.

Moon also wrote the 2002 opinion that Honolulu Mayor Jeremy Harris could remain in office until the candidate filing deadline, overturning a Circuit Court ruling that Harris should have resigned when he filed campaign organizational papers.

The chief justice also wrote a 1997 opinion allowing employees who suffer stress from disciplinary actions for misconduct to collect workers' compensation. The next year the Legislature passed a bill banning such claims for nonunion employees when the action was taken in "good faith" by the employer." [1]