EDITORIAL
New judge will bring relief to Hawai'i court

The political standoff over judicial appointments in the U.S. Senate has, thankfully, eased at least long enough for the confirmation of J. Michael Seabright as a federal district judge in Hawai'i.

Nobody can be happier than Seabright's three colleagues, who have struggled with a backlog of cases for the five years the post has been vacant.

The 46-year-old Seabright, the Bush administration's second nominee for the post, is well qualified and has accrued broad experience prosecuting high-profile federal white-collar and corruption cases in Hawai'i.

Seabright has won bribery convictions against former Honolulu liquor inspectors found guilty of accepting bribes from bars, for example, and he took the helm in the money-laundering case involving former Bishop Estate trustee Lokelani Lindsey.

He clearly could have been a casualty of the contentious atmosphere in the Senate Judiciary Committee, where his previous nomination was heard in November but then died through inaction. That was frustrating because it forced another delay.

Fortunately for Hawai'i, the nomination process remains functional enough to give our federal judiciary sorely needed help on the bench.