Daniel Foley, the Hawai’i civil rights attorney who helped spark the national debate on marriage equality more than 20 years ago, retired as a state judge last week.
Foley was the plaintiffs’ attorney in Baehr vs. Lewin, in which the Supreme Court of Hawai’i in 1993 held that the state’s denial of marriage licenses to same-sex couples was presumptively unconstitutional. Reaction to the opinion included the passage federal Defense of Marriage Act and several state constitutional amendments opposing marriage equality, including in Hawai’i in 1998.
Foley’s position was vindicated locally when the State of Hawaii approved marriage equality in 2013 and nationally when the U.S. Supreme Court did the same two years later.
Foley, 70, has been serving as a judge on state Intermediate Court of Appeals since 2000. He was forced to retire at the end of the year because of the state constitution’s age limit on judges.
During his judicial tenure, he led efforts to improve access to justice in Hawai’i, for which he was honored by the state bar last year. The state judiciary’s press release announcing his Ki’e Ki’e Award included this quote from Foley:
“So, in my 26 years as a lawyer, I did a lot of pro bono, and I don’t regret one hour. Some of my greatest successes and satisfaction came from those pro bono cases. It’s many of those cases I most remember and treasure when I look back at my career as a lawyer.”
His work prior to becoming a judge was written about by The Maui News in 2015:
His last pro bono case was in the summer of 2000, when he helped a same-sex couple adopt an infant girl. . . Foley saw the couple with their by then pre-teenage daughter. They told the girl, “Dear, this is the man that helped make our family,” Foley recalled. “And she said, ‘Thank you.’ ”
As a member of the court, he authored several noteworthy opinions, some of which defied expectations. In 2014, he ruled against a County of Hawai’i initiative to make marijuana-related prosecution a low priority, and in 2012 he agreed a beachfront landowner denied development permits could proceed with a property rights case against a municipality.
Foley isn’t ceasing all legal work, despite his retirement from the bench in Hawai’i. He is serving as a Supreme Court Justice for the Republic of Palau on a part-time basis.
His legacy of advocacy will be lasting, including through the work of the Hawai’i Access to Justice Commission, which he previously chaired. The front page of the commission’s website includes Foley’s simple, powerful statement:
“The pursuit of equal justice for all is truly a noble endeavor.”
(Originally posted at Medium.com/@raatz).