Randal Valenciano’s 18-year run as the chief judge of the 5th Circuit Court ended quietly this fall, leaving a vacant seat at the top of the Kaua‘i judiciary.

Valenciano retired on Sept. 30, almost two years before his term was slated to end in June 2027, a spokesperson for the Hawai‘i State Judiciary told Civil Beat. 

His eventual replacement will have big shoes to fill. The soft-spoken judge has been a fixture of the Circuit Court and Kaua‘i politics broadly for more than three decades. Appointed circuit judge in 2007, he has presided over many of Kaua‘i’s most high profile criminal trials and civil disputes. 

The task of picking a replacement circuit judge falls to Gov. Josh Green and the state’s Judicial Selection Commission. The commission — made up of nine members appointed by the House speaker, Senate president, governor, chief justice and the Hawaiʻi State Bar Association — will cast secret ballots on nominations submitted this month to assemble a slate of four to six candidates. The governor will then choose Kaua‘i’s next judge from that list. Judges are appointed to 10-year terms, with mandatory retirement at age 70.

The administrative chief judge role that Valenciano held will be chosen separately from the current pool of 5th Circuit Court judges by the state chief justice. In the interim, the spot has been filled by Michael Soong, a former Kaua‘i prosecutor who was appointed as a district court judge for the island in 2016.

Reasons For Retirement Unclear

Valenciano’s reasons for retiring are unclear, and he could not be reached for comment. Attorneys contacted by Civil Beat spoke highly of the retired judge. “I always appreciated his temperament,” said attorney Mauna Kea Trask, who often practiced before Valenciano when he worked in the Kaua‘i prosecutors office. “He was compassionate when it came to criminal justice. He took the job serious, which is all you can ask for.” 

Former Kaua‘i Prosecutor Justin Kollar described the judge as humble — “I’m not surprised that he would retire without a lot of fanfare,” he said.

The son of a journeyman welder and a nurse, Valenciano grew up on Kaua‘i’s Westside and attended Waimea High School before going on to study at the University of Oregon and the University of Washington School of Law. 

When he returned to the islands, he worked in the state public defender’s office and the county prosecutor’s office before entering private practice at his own law firm. 

Valenciano also served as a Kaua‘i County Council member from 1990 until 2002 and ran for mayor that same year, where he came in a distant third to current Senate President Ron Kouchi and former Mayor Bryan Baptiste.

He was appointed to the circuit court judge position in 2007 by Republican Gov. Linda Lingle, a role in which he tried cases and performed administrative duties.

In criminal sentencing, Kollar described the judge as fair and thoughtful. “Having grown up in that community, he understood the circumstances that folks were coming from,” Kollar said. “That gave him some additional compassion in determining sentencing.”

Valenciano’s retirement, however, came in the wake of a sexual harassment lawsuit against him, in which former employee Leanne Rosa accused the judge of conducting himself in a “sexually suggestive manner” during work hours and creating what the suit described as a “sexually hostile work environment.” This behavior included “sexualized hugs,” and telling Rosa that “he was in love with her,” according to the suit. 

Valenciano denied the claims in legal filings at the time. The suit was settled in late 2024, with state taxpayers left on the hook for a $90,000 payout to Rosa. The state Judiciary declined to comment on whether the settlement and Valenciano’s retirement were connected.

Known For Being Tough In Killings

In Kaua‘i’s rare homicide trial, Valenciano was not averse to handing down severe punishment. That was the case in the 2013 trial of Anahola man Vicente Hilario, who was convicted of murdering a witness to a drug robbery. Valenciano sentenced Hilario to life in prison without the possibility of parole. 

That verdict was overturned because Hilario was denied the right to approach the bench during jury selection. The case was tried again 10 years later, also before Valenciano, with the same result.

Other homicide cases tried before Valenciano — including the trial of Koma Kekoa Texeira Jr., convicted of a 2016 Salt Pond murder, and the case of Peter Grewer, convicted of murdering his landlord in 2018 — also resulted in life sentences without the possibility of parole.

Valenciano presided over high profile legal disputes, including cases related to the operation of the Hawaii Superferry, the now-defunct interisland passenger and vehicle ferry system, as well as the island’s embattled adolescent drug treatment center and the redevelopment of the Coco Palms hotel. In 2013, he heard the case of auto dealer Jimmy Pflueger, who was held criminally liable for reckless endangering after the collapse of the Ka Loko dam on his property killed seven people. Valenciano sentenced Pflueger, then 88, to seven months in prison.

Civil Beat’s reporting on Kauaʻi is supported in part by a grant from the G. N. Wilcox Trust; its reporting on women’s and girls’ issues is funded in part by the Frost Family Foundation.