He moved to Salt Lake City, Utah at a young age and served in the Marine Corps from 1954 to 1957 after high school.

[4][5] King presided over the trial of Mohamed Osman Mohamud, a Somali-American student arrested by the FBI in a 2010 sting, after he tried to set off what he thought was a bomb at a tree-lighting ceremony at Pioneer Courthouse Square in Portland.

[2] King presided over the lawsuit filed by Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation of Oregon, based in Ashland, against the U.S. Treasury Department.

The Treasury froze the assets of the charity after listing it as a "specially designated global terrorist organization" in 2004.

King ruled in favor of Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation, saying that it failed to receive adequate notice of the characterization and did not have a chance to challenge it.