Judicial Selection Commission Names Four Nominees for Kauai Circuit Judge Vacancy

The seat Circuit Judge Randal G. Valenciano left vacant when he retired from Kauai's Fifth Circuit Court in October 2025 is now one governor's decision away from being filled. The Judicial Selection Commission transmitted a list of four nominees to Gov. Josh Green on March 20, and under Article VI of the Hawaii State Constitution, Green has 30 days from receipt to name his appointment.

The nominees, listed in the commission's alphabetical order, are Craig A. De Costa, Michael D. Scarbo, Michael K. Soong and Kimberly A. Torigoe Metcalfe. The commission screened eight total applicants for the post, with three withdrawing before their formal interviews; five commissioners voted on the final slate.

Among the four, Soong arrives with the deepest judicial record on the island. He has served as a District Court judge on Kauai since Chief Justice Mark E. Recktenwald appointed him in September 2016, holds bar membership dating to 1986, and is a graduate of Southwestern University School of Law. A past president of the Hawaii Prosecuting Attorneys Association, Soong also has served on the board of the Friends of the Kauai Drug Court.

Scarbo holds a dual role as a partner at McCorriston Miller Mukai MacKinnon LLP and as a per diem judge in the Fifth Circuit Court itself, giving him direct experience with the docket he would be joining full-time. He is a graduate of Willamette University College of Law.

De Costa's career spans both ends of the prosecutorial divide. He served as Kauai's elected Prosecuting Attorney from 2004 to 2008 following 12 years in the county prosecutor's office, and has since practiced criminal defense. He graduated from the William S. Richardson School of Law at the University of Hawaii at Manoa.

Torigoe Metcalfe currently serves as a Deputy County Attorney for Kauai County and is also a Richardson law graduate.

The appointment carries consequences well beyond courtroom schedules. The Fifth Circuit holds jurisdiction over serious felonies, major civil disputes, contested custody hearings, domestic-violence restraining orders, and large-scale probate matters across the entire island. With the bench one seat short since October, criminal trial calendars have compressed and family and civil proceedings have faced cascading delays that ripple through the schedules of Kauai's public defenders, private attorneys, prosecuting office and community members waiting on the court's resolution of their cases.

Once Green appoints, the State Senate must confirm the selection before the new judge can be sworn in and begin receiving an assigned caseload in Lihu'e. The constitutional framework is precise: the governor must choose from a list of "not less than four, and not more than six, nominees for the vacancy, presented to the governor by the judicial selection commission."

Residents with active Fifth Circuit cases or questions about the selection process can contact the commission at judselect.comm@courts.hawaii.gov.