CV05-00030 - U.S. Dept of Justice, David C. Farmer, Trustee vs. Harmon

James E. Duffy, Jr. (born June 4, 1942) is an associate justice of the Hawaii State Supreme Court. He is currently serving a term that lasts from 2003 to 2013. He also is a former federal judicial nominee to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

Born in St. Paul, Minnesota, Duffy graduated from Cretin High School in Saint Paul, Minnesota, Duffy earned a bachelor's degree from the College of St. Thomas in 1965. He then went on to Marquette University to obtain his doctorate of jurisprudence in 1968.

Duffy began his legal career in 1968 at the law firm Cobb & Gould where he became an associate. He joined the law firm Chuck & Fujiyama in Honolulu, Hawaii as an associate. In 1975, Duffy became a senior partner and the firm was renamed Fujiyama, Duffy & Fujiyama. Duffy retired from Fujiyama, Duffy & Fujiyama in 2000 and worked as a mediator from 2000 until his appointment to the Hawaii State Supreme Court in 2003.

On June 17, 1999, President Bill Clinton nominated Duffy to a seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit to replace Judge Cynthia Holcomb Hall, who had taken senior status on August 31, 1997. Although Duffy had the support of both of Hawaii's U.S. senators at the time, his nomination languished in the Republican-led Senate, which declined to hold a U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee hearing or vote on his nomination.

In a quixotic move, Clinton renominated Duffy and several other appeals-court nominees on January 3, 2001. President George W. Bush on March 20, 2001 withdrew Duffy's nomination, along with those of 62 other executive and judicial nominees, choosing not to renominate Duffy. Later in 2001, Bush nominated Richard R. Clifton of Hawaii for the seat to which Duffy had been nominated, and Clifton was confirmed in a 98-0 vote of the U.S. Senate on July 30, 2002.

In 2003, Hawaii Governor Linda Lingle appointed Duffy from his private practice to the five-member Hawaii State Supreme Court. Though appointed by a governor from the Hawaii Republican Party, Duffy is a member of the Hawaii Democratic Party.

"Hawaii has been very good to me, both personally and professionally, and this is my opportunity to pay back some of the good things that have been done for me in the practice of law and personally," Duffy said at a news conference while standing next to Lingle, according to an April 15, 2003 Associated Press article...

University of Louisville men's basketball coach Rick Pitino is in the midst of a scandal as he admitted to police that he had sex in a restaurant in August 2003 with Karen Sypher, the woman who is charged with attempting to extort him.

Pitino also admitted to giving Sypher $3,000 for an abortion after she informed him she was pregnant....

It's extremely unlikely Hawaii will get the dreaded "death penalty" from the NCAA for using an ineligible player in men's volleyball. But the state's most venerable observer of sports sees the situation as life-and-death in the figurative sense.

"If they take the (2002 national) championship away that's a mortal blow for (coach Mike) Wilton, the team and the university," retired sportscaster Les Keiter said. "I can't see the NCAA just slapping them on the wrist."

UH athletic director Herman Frazier has sounded a confident tone since reports of a violation surfaced Wednesday. He has experience with the NCAA on serious compliance issues from his time at Arizona State, and said such dealings are a strength of his.

"From an NCAA standpoint I don't think they can call this a major problem," he said in a phone interview Thursday. "I think they will find the institution did everything humanly possible to be in compliance."

But if they don't, Keiter said, forfeiting the school's only national championship in a men's sport -- and in a sport that is so popular here -- could put a pall over the UH athletic department second only to the men's basketball scandal of the mid-1970s. That one ended with two years of NCAA probation, a scattering of promising coaches and players, and a team that went 1-26 in 1977-78.

The long time TV voice of the program agrees. But Jim Leahey added that the volleyball situation could turn out worse than the basketball scandal.

"The difference is basketball was nowhere near a national championship, and in this situation they may have to take down the flag. This is worse," Leahey said. "The basketball team was very popular, but this is also a team that is deeply loved by the people."

UH has had several brushes with the NCAA over the years, most of them fairly minor eligibility issues. Until the potentially catastrophic volleyball revelations last week, they were all the equivalent of parking violations when compared to what befell the basketball program in 1976 and 1977.

Hawaii was hoops crazy in the early 1970s with the success of the Fabulous Five, and later, Thomas Henderson, a future Olympian and NBA starter whom many consider the program's greatest player.

On Feb. 3, 1976, UH was notified by the NCAA that four players -- Henry Hollingsworth, Gary Gray, George Ritter and David Knight -- broke rules by appearing in a TV commercial for Cutter Ford. "The Cutter Four" (of whom only Hollingsworth was a starter) is what people remember most about the scandal. But it was the proverbial tip of the iceberg.

The TV commercial was a relatively minor transgression ("they weren't getting cars," Leahey recalled), but it brought on an NCAA investigation that discovered 68 violations of 18 rules. The university itself and its student government also investigated, and discovered "a host of irregularities," including payment of apartment rentals by head coach Bruce O'Neil.

On May 7, 1977, the hammer fell. According to Star-Bulletin articles at the time, the program was placed on probation and nine individuals -- O'Neil, assistant coach Rick Pitino, athletic director Paul Durham and boosters Wallace Fujiyama, Stuart Ho, Tom Mui, Clarence Chang, Harry Kurasaki and Mike Suzuki were ordered to permanently sever all relations with UH athletics. A tenth person, booster club president Art Woolaway, was ordered to disassociate himself for two years.

Durham fought the charges against him and on Dec. 23, 1977, the NCAA cleared him of any wrongdoing. He remains a staunch supporter of UH sports today. So does Woolaway, who splits his time between the mainland and Hawaii and is an honorary assistant coach of the Rainbows.

Pitino was 2-4 as interim head coach after O'Neil was relieved Feb. 6, 1976. Pitino went on to a hugely successful career as a college and NBA head coach that continues to this day at Louisville. He rarely mentions his time in Hawaii.

Pete Gillen was another assistant for that UH team. He also went on to success and is the head coach at Virginia.

O'Neil also landed on his feet. He owns a sports promotion business in Oregon and has partnered with ESPN, helping the network launch ESPN Home Video.

The 1975-76 team went 11-16. It was Hawaii's first losing season in five years, and the Rainbows didn't finish with a winning record again until 1980-81, when they went 14-13.

On Dec. 16, 1976, players Ed Torres, Wayne Crowe and Steve Borup were declared ineligible by the NCAA because of the rental payment violations. After a review, Borup's eligibility was restored, but Torres and Crowe were forced to sit out the remainder of the 1976-77 season.

Reggie Carter, a promising freshman on the 1975-76 team, transferred to St. John's and went on to a brief NBA career.

Keiter, who was the sports director at KHON at the time, said he doesn't think the scandal knocked down an up-and-coming program.

"They had some good young players, but as I look back I don't really think there was any indication they were on their way to being a powerhouse," he said. "But I can't think of any other scandal that put UH sports in as bad a light."

"NCAA violations happen to lots of schools for lots of reasons," he said. "But when the football team went 0-12 (in 1998) we all felt that shame. It got to be ridiculous to go out to the game and hope they win. There's not that much shame with NCAA sanctions, other than 'We got caught.' "

But, as Leahey reminded, there is more at stake now with volleyball than there was with basketball 27 years ago.

"The tragedy is it's the school's only men's national title," he said. "If that flag has to come down. ..."

Arthur Davies Woolaway, 92, of Dallas, a Maui Agriculture Co. irrigation supervisor, Hawaiian Commercial and Sugar Co. field superintendent and Gray Line Hawaii Ltd. president and owner, died in Dallas. He also was a Alexander & Baldwin president's assistant. He was born in Honolulu. He is survived by wife Suzanne; children Stanley and Joy; stepchildren Dee Jay Mailer, Lori Halderman and Kristin Dunn; 10 grandchildren; and five great-grandchildren. Celebration of life: 4 p.m. Sunday at Oahu Country Club. Donations suggested to University of Hawaii Foundation Men's Basketball Program, American Cancer Society Research for Punahou School.