Derrick Kahala Watson

Early life and education

Derrick Kahala Watson was born in 1966, in Honolulu, Hawaii, to a Honolulu police officer and a worker at a local bank. He graduated from the Kamehameha Schools in 1984 and received his Artium Baccalaureus cum laude from Harvard College in 1988. Watson was the first in his family to graduate college. Watson received his Juris Doctor from Harvard Law School in 1991, and was admitted to practice law in California the same year. Barack Obama and Neil M. Gorsuch were members of his graduating class.

Legal career and service in Army Reserves

He began his career as an associate at the law firm of Landels, Ripley & Diamond in San Francisco, California, where he worked from 1991 to 1995. He served as an Assistant United States Attorney in the Northern District of California from 1995 to 2000, serving as Deputy Chief of the Civil Division from 1999 to 2000. In 2000, Watson returned to private practice, joining the law firm of Farella Braun + Martel LLP, where he worked on product liability, toxic tort, and environmental cost recovery litigation. Watson became a partner at the firm in 2003. While in private practice, Watson conducted substantial pro bono work on behalf of the San Francisco Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights, he also did pro bono work involving human trafficking and wage and hour claims. Watson served as an Assistant United States Attorney in the District of Hawaii from 2007 to 2013 and served as Chief of the Civil Division from 2009 to 2013. From 1998 to 2006, Watson served in the United States Army Reserve in the Judge Advocate General's Corps, with the rank of captain. He was honorably discharged.

Federal judicial service

On November 14, 2012, President Obama nominated Watson to serve as a United States District Judge for the United States District Court for the District of Hawaii, to the seat vacated by Judge David Alan Ezra, who took senior status on June 27, 2012. On January 2, 2013, his nomination was returned to the President, due to the sine die adjournment of the Senate. He was renominated to the same office the next day. Watson was rated "well qualified" by a substantial majority of the American Bar Association's Standing Committee on the Federal Judiciary. Watson encountered no opposition in the Senate Judiciary Committee, which reported his nomination to the Senate floor on February 14, 2013, by voice vote. Watson's appointment was confirmed by a vote of 94 ayes to 0 nays on April 18, 2013. He received his commission on April 23, 2013. Watson is the fourth Native Hawaiian to serve on the federal bench, and the only currently serving Native Hawaiian judge.

Travel ban case

On March 15, 2017, Watson granted a temporary restraining order blocking President Trump's revised executive order banning entry of nationals of six majority-Muslim countries into the United States from going into effect. Watson held that the order would violate the First Amendment's Establishment Clause in that "a reasonable, objective observer ... would conclude that the Executive Order was issued with a purpose to disfavor a particular religion." On March 29, Watson converted the temporary restraining order into a preliminary injunction. On June 12, 2017, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit upheld the majority of the injunction, unanimously determining that Trump had "exceeded the scope of authority delegated to the president" under the Immigration and Nationality Act. The U.S. Supreme Court granted Trump's request to hear the case, setting arguments for October 2017; in the meantime, the Court partially reinstated Trump's executive order for a travel ban on June 26, 2017; the Court "prohibited the government from enforcing the ban against any 'foreign nationals who have a credible claim of a bona fide relationship with a person or entity in the United States,' but they allowed the government to enforce it against travelers who lack such a relationship."

Initially, the Trump administration excluded grandparents, aunts, uncles, and other relations from the exceptions to the travel ban, arguing that they were not "close" relatives. The State of Hawaii filed an emergency motion to clarify the scope of "close familial relationships" under the terms of the injunction and Supreme Court decision narrowing it, asking the district court to rule "that the federal government may not enforce the controversial bans against fiances, grandparents, grandchildren, brothers-in-law, sisters-in-law, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews and cousins of people currently living in the United States." On July 6, Watson denied the motion, writing that "[t]his Court will not upset the Supreme Court's careful balancing and equitable judgment" and that the State should seek guidance from the Supreme Court. State Attorney General Doug Chin described Watson's action as "procedural" rather than a decision on the merits. Subsequently, the Ninth Circuit ruled that Watson "had the authority to interpret the Supreme Court's order and block any violation of it" and the issue returned to him. On July 13 Watson issued a ruling expanding the class of exemptions from the travel ban. He ordered that the definition of "close family members" be expanded to include grandparents, grandchildren, brothers-in-law, sisters-in-law, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, and cousins in the United States. Watson also ruled that refugees who have a formal promise of placement from a U.S. resettlement agency are exempt from the ban. The following day, U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson sent out a diplomatic cable to all U.S. diplomatic posts reflecting Watson's ruling; the cable "reversed the State Department's previous, narrow definition of close family and stated that 'grandparents, grandchildren, brothers-in-law, sisters-in-law, aunts and uncles, nephews and nieces, and cousins' are eligible for visas."

Personal life

Watson described himself to the Honolulu Star-Advertiser as a political independent.