The last days of May and the first of June were spent trying a case. It was made memorable by my being the assistant trial counsel to Richard T. McSorley. I believe it to be his first real taste of representing a client in a trial. It was before a Judge, without a jury. We were representing a young man (41 years of age now) being sued for abuse of civil process. It alleged he used a lawsuit to harass and/or damage the now plaintiff for little or no reason and without cause. The Bensalem Township police at the request of Strawbridge & Clothier, for allegedly stealing an employee’s ring, detained the young man. The facts and the details are not material to the memories, since they have to do with watching Richard under pressure. He handled it very well and was rewarded with a verdict for his client. He was scolded by the Judge and whispered at by his assistant. He stated later he wasn’t sure which was worse, the Judge or his uncle. He had a baptism by fire and walked out unscathed and is now prepared for the next battle with more confidence. Watching him sweat reminded me of what was probably my first such venture in 1959 in the Eastern District (Federal Court).
I was only out of the service since November 1958 and still had friends and connections at the naval base where I had served from early 1957. I was called to see if I would represent a young man languishing in the Brig now some two months and was literally in limbo. In those days they had a program called “High School Reserves”. You entered it in high school, made meetings, and at gradation went into active duty in the Navy to satisfy your Selective Service requirement. Unfortunately, no one considered what happened if, after entering the USN Reserve, you did not complete high school and just stopped going to meetings. The boy, whose name I can’t recall, was from Scranton, and he did exactly that.
The case was a big newspaper item in that town and Father Dick was there at that time. He sent me some clippings and I think may have gone up to look over the scene or meet the boy’s parents.
The boy ended up in the Philadelphia Naval Brig as a result allegedly of a midnight raid on his house by the Shore Patrol. They carried him off as a deserter. However, when he got to Philly and the Brig, the Law Department couldn’t decide if his status made him subject to the then young, UC of MJ, or the Uniform Code of “Military Justice” (there’s an oxymoron for you!). So he languished in the Brig. We were asked to come to his rescue and we did. We filed a petition in the Federal Court against the Secretary of the Navy and everybody all the way down to the Lieutenant in charge of the Brig, which incidentally, had been one of my jobs as a Marine Lieutenant at the Naval Base. The Petition requested a Writ of Habeas Corpus issue against them and the release of the prisoner, at least until trial of the matter.
The hearing was before a curmudgeon from Chester County who had a reputation on the Federal bench for devouring lawyers. The U.S. Attorney, representing the Navy, was one Joe McGlynn, later to serve nine years on the Philadelphia Common Pleas Court and then be appointed to this very Court we were before, where he sits even today.
The memory that came to me as I watched Richard struggle and writhe and be upbraided was how I had suffered likewise that day in 1959. The Judge kept bellowing at me, e.g., “Get off that corner in Scranton and get to the issues”!! I had a tough time with the boy’s father, trying to get him to explain the alleged abduction, but we also did succeed. A temporary writ was issued pending a hearing in 30 days. The defendant was to be treated as a civilian, so he needed to post bail. That became a problem!
The father did not see why he had to spend more money. I couldn’t believe it! I had succeeded, and now it was all to go to naught! Exasperated, I explained this to my father (Richard T. McSorley, Esquire also), who floored me with his astute response, “What did I expect? The father finally got the bum out of the house, and now you want him to bring him back, and pay money to do it!”
So bail was not set and he would remain in the Brig until the hearing. But then the last and final twist occurred – he escaped the Brig! He was captured, tried and given a Bad Conduct Discharge after 6 months in Portsmouth Naval Prison.
Another memory of trials past is the In Oh Ho case in the early sixties. I was involved as an assistant counsel even before the deserter case. The main counsel was John E. Walsh, then or later Register of Wills. He was court appointed, as was I, through Richard T. The murder occurred before or about the time I was leaving the service. Dad had been appointed. He resigned and had me appointed in his place when I came aboard in 1958.
The incident was a celebrated one, in that it made “Time” magazine and Dilworth, our Mayor, was pictured weeping at the funeral. Ho was a Korean student at the University of Pennsylvania who was beaten to death on his way to mail a letter somewhere around 35th & Brown Streets in West Philly. His assailants were some eight or nine black boys, some of whom apparently were involved only because the original instigator, one Flip Borum, was not succeeding in subduing Mr. Ho. The others joined, resulting in a bloody death for Mr. Ho. Several of the boys were indicted and because murder in the first degree was sought and it was a capital, or death offense, they were entitled to appointed counsel. Dad and Mr. Walsh were appointed to represent one, Harold Johnson. He would be the fifth to be tried. Cecil Moore, who now has a street named after him, represented the major offender, Flip Borum. The prosecutor was a black lawyer of similar reputation, whose name escapes me, but who later served on the bench as a Common Pleas judge. The rivalry between them was public knowledge so it added more fuel to the media’s coverage.
As an assistant, I had little to do, since I discovered that John’s heart was not really in the matter, he did a competent job, but to the eager young attorney, he was missing what appeared to be to him many opportunities to create reasonable doubt. Harold Johnson was convicted of first-degree murder. Mr. Walsh resigned from the matter and I was his appeal attorney. The appeal went directly to the Pa. Supreme Court since it was a capital case. By the time it was heard and decided Harold Johnson had been in jail for five years. I hit a home run! The Supreme Court reversed his conviction on the grounds of excessive prosecutorial zeal and the use of juvenile records in cross-examining Harold. I heard the decision via the Evening Bulletin while in Washington, D.C. was in D.C. with John Rogers Carroll assisting him in reviewing records that would go before, I believe, the McCarron Committee. They were investigating the Teamsters. John’s office, McBride, Van Moschiker and Carroll, were representing Local 107 of this area.
The victory in that appeal was to be my only one. The few I’ve had since never made it.
I also caused, by the reversal, the retrieval of all those cases still pending which had been tried already, but no sentence had been given. It made me a recognized acquaintance of Cecil B. Moore whose case was still in the motion for new trial stage.
I remember standing on a Broad Street corner about to get a bus to go into center city, when who should pull up but Cecil B. Moore in his big Mercury. He gave me a lift. I noted that the renowned defense attorney seemed to be living out of his car, it seems his private life was not as successful as his professional one.
The final story of In Oh Ho happened some 8 or 9 years later in 1971. I was then Commissioner of Records under Mayor Tate. I was visited by a black gentleman who inquired if I was the “Mr. McSorley who was an attorney in the Ho case?” To which I replied I was. He then beamed at me, “I’m Harold Johnson, you was my lawyer!” He then told me he wanted to say hello and thank me again. He was married, had four children and life was good. He had learned a great lesson and it certainly made his lawyer proud at that moment to see he had played an important part in saving someone’s life. Harold was akin to the leper in the parable; he was one who returned after he was cured. The other nine are still out there.
I omitted to advise how Harold got out of prison. After the Supreme Court reversed the case, I entered an agreement with the District Attorney making Harold a witness in the case and giving him a sentence of the time already spent in jail.
I also note I discussed this briefly in 1992 when I started these writings.
MORE JUNE JOTTINGS
Sitting on the stoop in Hilton, NY – the stoop of 16 Fraser Street, the home of Lori and Dan, in a cool morning breeze, enjoying the quiet and a time of recovery. The day is Tuesday, June 20th and we came to this resting place via Manchester, Vermont and New Milford, Connecticut.
Manchester was the site of the wedding of Tom and Sarah Hopkins, nee Langevin. We witnessed and participated in the wedding of the century. We were guests and in some fifty years of participating and paying for weddings, this one tops them all.
We arrived Thursday night at a quiet country motel, after a drive through the town. Thursday was to be a rehearsal dinner party at the Dorset Field Club, really a golf course-country club. It is one of, if not the, oldest golf courses in the U.S. It is nine holes of manicured lawn and greens that we played on Friday. The “rehearsal” dinner would match any wedding “reception” we have ever been a part of in the past. Over 200 guests, a musical trio called “Normandy” who began playing outside during the appetizers and stayed the rest of the night to conclude with dancing around 10 p.m. We each received a cassette of their latest releases (I think on RCA). The golf the next day was all on the father of the bride, including lunch and an engraved half dozen golf balls – the “Sarah and Tom Invitational”, June 16, 1995. The golf was a best ball tournament, with individual awards for low gross and net, etc., etc. Just one more touch to an already incredible time.
While we played golf June attended a shower. Friday night was a cocktail party at the home of a neighbor, Tom Malloy, who was one of my golfing partners. They are neighbors, the Malloys and the Langevins, in the truest sense of the word. They converted an old school house into two homes, on a large plot of land, with a small brook and beautiful enormous trees. Tom Malloy’s mother taught at this schoolhouse in 1923. There are pictures of her and the class on the wall of the study, Library, or what have you, in the Malloy home.
The twins, Sean and David, were participants in the wedding as ushers. The groom is their uncle. Following the party we went out to dinner with them.
The wedding was in St. Paul’s R.C. Church in the afternoon, with the reception following at “Hildene”, the historic estate of Robert Todd Lincoln, the oldest surviving son of Abraham Lincoln. The mansion is an historic building. The tours ended just as we began to arrive. On the expansive football field size lawn, surrounded by a forest, we travelled through a reception line of wedding party, parents, grandparents, to a restored gazebo in which a chamber orchestra played music. At the end of the line stood waiters and waitresses with crystal glasses filled with Moet Chandan champagne. As the guests waited for others to be received we were served by waiters with hot and cold appetizers, or really hors d’oeuvres in the best sense of the word.
Next, we went through the mansion’s first floor to a large tent filled with flowing white drapes and with white covered poles. Behind the tent was a formal English garden with all of the flowers in bloom (it was planned that the wedding would be this weekend to catch the blooming!). Behind the garden a natural balcony with a stone wall overlooked the valley (the “dene” in the word “Hildene”) of green that rose to the Green Mountains in the distance.
To the right of the tent as you entered at is one end was a stage and a dance floor, at the other were several large standing charcoal grills from which the buffet dinner was served. At each table place thee was a gold box with inscribed ribbon containing Godiva chocolates. In the garden was a bar and scattered about the garden were tables and chairs. The band was playing as we came in and when we left at 10 p.m. The wedding was to go until midnight. At 9:30 p.m. when the couple cut the cake a fireworks display started and continued until a roaring climax some 15 minutes later. Each table was named, not numbered, for some part of the couple’s life; for example, we sat the “Eli”, the name of Sarah’s cat. The name was on a 5×7 card printed in Gothic calligraphy in a pewter-like frame of fancy design.
So it was the “wedding of weddings”, and since it was for their only child, it would be their last. We offered to arrange for them to adopt another daughter so we could do it all again next year!
We left the magical town of Manchester, Vermont on Sunday with Sean and David in tow. Drove through the balance of Vermont, south through Massachusetts and then 2/3rds of the way through Connecticut to New Milford, the new home of Joe and Debbie Golden. It is a large single sitting on almost 2 acres of land. The front yard would make a fine putting green, and the rear an easy chipping one. The ride to New Milford was through the Housantic State Park, along the Housantic River – very scenic, very twisting, and very slow driving. We arrived at “16 Standish Street” around 11 a.m. after an assist from Joe who met us as we waited just outside the town limits. A short visit with Joe, Debbie, Joseph and Andrew, who gave us Happy Father’s Day cards, since it was the 18th of June. Then it was off to “16 Fraser Street” in Hilton, NY. The drive was across the state of New York to the banks of the great Lake Ontario. It is there we sat and began this note.
It is now the day of departure. We will proceed from here to Avalon, NJ to run in the “Nun’s Run” on Saturday, the 24th. Yesterday, the 21st, we visited Niagara Falls, a wonder to behold. The boys have declared they have had more fun these last two days than the whole weekend of the wedding. They have been great companions to 4-year-old Meaghan, and the trip to Niagara gave them a boat ride to the edge of the falls and a walk in the “Cave of the Winds” under the American falls. In addition,
Danny had a computer and apparently all the right games, so compared to a boring wedding, why not be elated? They also got their first visit to a foreign country, i.e., Canada.
We went from the shores of Lake Ontario to the shores of the Atlantic in Avalon. We got to see Tom, Donna, Tommy and Linda and later Matthew, Karen, Kate, Meg, and Colleen, as Sue visited. Bill, Mary and Ron are all down to participate in the run.
Sean did 9 minute-miles, outsprinting Pop-Pop at the finish line, making Pop-Pop very proud. I didn’t think there were many, if any, besides us who had a grandpop and grandson doing the run together.
I omitted one incident. As we played golf on the 7th hold, I nearly had a hold in one, missed by only inches. It was the 110-yard hold from a raised tee on the side of a hill to a green in the valley below. As I hit the ball a group, including Greg Hopkins, the winner of the low net prize, and some others were coming down their fairway, also raised and on the same level as we were. They stopped and watched as my ball hit the green and headed for the hole. Greg exclaimed as it stopped inches away from the hole, “Wow! Great shot Paul!” To which I immediately responded, “What do you mean ‘great shot’, it didn’t go in!”
Thought for the month: “Children are natural Zen masters, their world is brand-new each and every moment.” (John Bradshaw)