Remembering Federal Judge Samuel Pailthorpe King

Funeral to be held at St. Andrews Cathedral Wednesday December 29, 2010, 2:30pm

December 28, 2010 ---(Honolulu, Hawaii) The funeral service for retired federal Judge Samuel Pailthorpe King will be held tomorrow at St. Andrews’s Cathedral. A gathering will begin at 1:30pm, followed by the service at 2:30pm with the Order of Kamehameha entering the Cathedral on Beretania and Queen Emma/Alakea St.. An informal reception following the service with the family will be held on the lawn. King, 94 died on December 7, 2010.

Federal Judge Samuel Pailthorpe King was born in Hangkow, China on April 13, 1916. He was a self-described Navy kid, as his father was running a gunboat in China in 1910 on the Yangtze River. King graduated from Yale Law School, and then worked in the Honolulu Prosecutor’s office in 1941. After Pearl Harbor was bombed he wanted to join the Navy but with only one eye, his father Samuel Wilder King (Delegate for Hawaii and then Governor from ’52-‘56) had to help his son get into the Navy. While in the Navy, he attended Japanese language school in Boulder, CO and then served as an interpreter for the Navy. He was stationed in Hiroshima just two weeks after the atom bomb dropped. He later joined the Navy Reserve, retiring as a Captain.

While in private practice he became a state judge, and started the family court system in Hawaii and ran for governor in 1970 but lost to Governor Burns, and also served for a time as chair of the Republican Party. He was then approached by Senator Harold Fong to become a Federal Judge, and was sworn in 1972 and served throughout his life. In addition to his service in the judiciary, he used his notoriety to expose corruption within the Bishop Estate with the publication of the article entitled “Broken Trust”, co-written by Randall Roth, Walter Heen, Father Kekumanu and Gladys Brandt, and later with the release of the book of the same name. Sam King was the conscience of Hawaii and always strived to make it a better place.

Samuel Pailthorpe King is survived by wife Anne King, son Samuel P. King, Jr., daughters Louise K. Lanzilotti and Charlotte K. Stretch, sister Dr. Pauline N. King and six grand children. The family requests that in lieu of flowers, donations in the name of the Honorable Samuel P. King be sent to Kalikolehua-El Sistema Hawaii, 1735 Dole St. No. 110, Honolulu, HI 96822.

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