U.S. district judge nominee appears before Senate panel

Federal attorney Derrick Watson appeared Wednesday before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, which is considering whether to send his nomination as Hawaii’s fourth full-time U.S. district judge to the Senate floor for a vote.

The committee is expected to vote on his nomination in several weeks, although no date for the session has been set.

Watson, an assistant U.S. attorney in Hawaii since 2007, was nominated by President Barack Obama to the lifetime judge position last year and renominated by the president early this month for the new Senate.

His nomination did not raise any opposition among the committee members during the hearing.

Watson, a graduate of Kamehameha Schools who has spent most of his legal career on the mainland, would be the first part-Hawaiian federal judge since U.S. District Judge Samuel King, who died in 2010.

Watson thanked the president, the late U.S. Sen. Daniel Inouye and retired U.S. Sen. Daniel Akaka. The senators, he said, were instrumental in his nomination.

Inouye and Akaka forwarded to Obama the names of Watson and two others who were selected by a judicial screening commission.

Watson, a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School, worked for a San Francisco law firm from 1991 to 1995, the U.S. attorney’s office in the Northern District of California from 1995 to 2000 and another San Francisco law firm from 2000 to 2007.

In response to a question by Hawaii Sen. Mazie Hirono, a member of the judiciary committee, Watson said he returned to Hawaii because of "family."

He said he started looking for a job here after the birth of the first of his two sons in November 2006. His son’s grandparents on both sides were in Hawaii, he said.

Watson acknowledged he would have to switch from being an advocate to being a jurist who must impartially apply the law.

"While that will be a challenge, it’s one that I am confident I can meet," he said.

Four other nominations by Obama to the federal bench were also heard by the committee during its session.