King married Anne van Patten Grilk on July 8, 1944 in Boulder, Colorado. They had a son, Samuel Pailthorpe King, Jr., and two daughters, Louise King Lanzilotti and Charlotte "Becky" King Stretch.
Legal career
King started in private law practice in Washington, D.C. in 1942. During World War II, he joined the United States Navy as a Japanese language translator from 1942 to 1946, and the Naval Reserve from 1946 to 1967. He returned to private practice of law in Honolulu, Hawaii from 1946 to 1961. He was a district magistrate for the City and County of Honolulu from 1956 to 1961. Governor William F. Quinn appointed him judge to the First Circuit Court of Hawaii from 1961 to 1970, and then a judge on the Family Court of Hawaii from 1966 to 1970. In 1970 he resigned as a judge and ran as a Republican for governor of Hawaii, losing to incumbent John A. Burns. He returned to private law practice from 1970 to 1972.
Federal judicial service
King was nominated by President Richard Nixon on May 22, 1972 to a seat vacated by Judge Cyrus Nils Tavares on the United States District Court for the District of Hawaii. He was confirmed by the United States Senate on June 28, 1972, and received his commission on June 28, 1972. He served as Chief Judge from 1974 to 1984. Although there were two judgeships authorized for the district, the other judge, Dick Yin Wong, died in 1978. King had to try all the cases except for occasional help from visiting mainland judges. Walter Meheula Heen was nominated in January 1981 via a recess appointment, but was not confirmed, so by the end of 1981 King was back to being the only judge. In 1983 King suffered temporary amnesia, and assumed senior status on November 30, 1984.
Notable cases
From The New York Times, "His favorite and longest-running case involved protecting a small finch-billed bird, the palila, by removing wild goats and sheep from the slopes of a volcano. He ruled in 1979 that the bird had standing to sue in federal court and monitored the bird’s welfare for the rest of his life." In 1973, King presided over the case that convicted suspected organized crime leader Wilford Kalaauala "Nappy" Pulawa and five others for income tax evasion. After taking senior status, he continued to hear cases, including a murder trial depicted in the book And the Sea Will Tell that took place on remote Palmyra Atoll. The trial moved to California because of pre-trial publicity, and included defense lawyers Vincent Bugliosi and Leonard Weinglass. King's other high-profile rulings include one "barring federal authorities from using a telescope to peer into a home without a warrant and upholding a state land-reform law that allowed residential leaseholders to buy land from landlords, including the Bishop Estate."
Essay
In 1997, King joined with other respected senior civic leaders to publish the essay "Broken Trust" in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin newspaper. Co-authors were Judge Walter Heen, Monsignor Charles Kekumano, educator Gladys Brandt, and William S. Richardson School of Law Professor Randall W. Roth. The investigation prompted by the report resulted in the reorganization of the Kamehameha Schools. He and Roth co-authored a book expanding the essay, published in 2006.
