Steven H. Levinson

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Associate Justice of the Hawaii State Supreme Court, Steven H. Levinson.

Contents

Born:

Hawai'i State Supreme Court Terms:

  • 1992-2002,
  • 2002-2012

Education:

Legal career:

  • Associate and partner, Damon, Key, Bocken, Leong and Kupchak, 1977-89.
  • Schutter, Levinson and O'Brien, 1972-76.
  • Law clerk for his uncle, Hawai'i Supreme Court Associate Justice Bernard Levinson, 1971-72.

Judicial career:

Family:

  • Married;
  • two children.



According to a Honolulu Advertiser article by Lynda Arakawa, entitled Top jurists represent diverse backgrounds and dated November 23, 2003:

"When Steven Levinson was appointed by Gov. John Waihee to the Hawai'i Supreme Court in 1992, he described himself as a child of the 1960s with a tendency to "reach out and grab issues, rather than duck them."
But the justice said since then he has grown "substantially more restrained," saying his propensity to resolve every conceivable issue in any given appeal contributed to a personal backlog of 110 cases in 1996.
"Since 1996 I've learned that even though that might be the way to go in a perfect world where one had all the resources one needed, that in our imperfect world, and in our under-resourced institution, that is a recipe for disaster," Levinson said.
"And so I have become much more restrained with respect to what it is necessary to decide in order to answer the questions that are raised on appeal and ... I've learned that the opportunity will come in another appeal to answer the questions you don't have to answer now."
Levinson considers himself politically liberal, although he said political ideology is irrelevant in judicial matters. Still, many observers consider him to be the liberal backbone of the court, largely because of the 1993 landmark majority opinion he wrote declaring the state's ban on same-sex marriages is unconstitutional unless the state can justify the prohibition.
Levinson, known for writing scholarly opinions some say are too long (some call him The Professor), also wrote a 110-page dissent to a 1998 decision that affirmed a man's petty misdemeanor marijuana conviction and declared that privacy rights don't allow people to possess and use marijuana for recreation. Levinson wrote that the marijuana possession law violates the constitutional right of privacy and that he would have thrown out the conviction." [1]


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