Greg King

Gregory James King (17 September 1969 – 3 November 2012) was a New Zealand criminal defence lawyer and broadcaster. He has been described as "one of this country's finest legal brains". Early life and education Of Ngāti Tūwharetoa descent, King was born in Whanganui and grew up in Tūrangi, where his father was a prison officer. He was head prefect at Tongariro High School in 1987. The following year, he represented New Zealand as one of 32 pavilion hosts in the World Expo in Brisbane, Australia. King studied law at the University of Otago, graduating (LLB) in 1992. He was admitted to the bar on 14 May 1993 at Dunedin High Court. Legal career In 1996, King became the "youngest New Zealand lawyer to appear as lead in a murder trial and over the rest of his career he represented over 50 clients who were charged with murder." In 2003, in conjunction with trial lawyer Mike Antunovic, King unsuccessfully took the Scott Watson case to the Privy Council in London seeking leave to appeal his convictions for double murder. He successfully appealed to the Privy Council in 2005 in representing the double murderer Bruce Howse; and his application to the Privy Council in 2008 and 2009 for leave to reopen the case of John Barlow, convicted of the murder of Gene and Eugene Thomas, was similarly successful. In 2009 King assisted Judith Ablett-Kerr in the defence of Clayton Weatherston for the murder of Sophie Elliott. In 2012, King successfully defended Ewen MacDonald on the charge of murdering his brother-in-law Scott Guy, a long arduous case which generated huge public interest, including televised court reports. It was King's much-reported passionate advocacy in this case that brought him to national attention across New Zealand and "made him a household name". The New Zealand Law Society's summary of King's involvement in precedent-making cases includes the following: "He successfully argued in 2009 that Auckland liquor shop owner Virender Singh had exercised his rights to defend himself and his shop with a hockey stick against five teenagers. He was also counsel in the first and second ever successful criminal appeals to the Supreme Court. The first of these, R v Timoti [2006] 1 NZLR 323, 21 CRNZ 804, resulted in the overturning of a murder conviction from 1999, with the appeal focusing on the partial defence of provocation.