Appointed by Governor Josh Green, M.D., Karen Tooko Nakasone  was sworn in as Chief Judge of the Intermediate Court of Appeals (ICA) on July 1, 2025.

She was elevated to the ICA by Governor David Y. Ige in 2020, and served 4.5 years as Associate Judge, from November 2, 2020 to June 30, 2025.

She was first appointed to the First Circuit Court by Governor Neil Abercrombie in 2011, where she served nine years as a trial judge in the Civil and Criminal Divisions, from November 1, 2011 to November 1, 2020.

Upon graduating from the Boston University School of Law, she served as ICA law clerk to the Honorable Simeon R. Acoba Jr. She then served as a criminal trial and appellate lawyer for the State Office of the Public Defender for fifteen years. 

Chief Judge Nakasone is a 2008 Pacific Century Fellow, and was named 2009 Best Lawyers Under 40 by the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association.   

She is a graduate of Hawaii Baptist Academy, and received her undergraduate degree from Bryn Mawr College. She also attended the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa and studied abroad at the University of the Ryukyus in Okinawa, Japan, on an Okinawan Prefectural Government scholarship from the Hawai‘i United Okinawa Association.