“Thank you Ladies and Gentlemen! You are now free to leave and I am sure you are all very happy about that with exception of Mr.McSorley.”
So spoke His Honor in Court Room No.6 of the Pinellas County Criminal Court to all those of the jury panel who had not been selected to sit on the case. This occurred on January 24, 2001. Judge Thomas, His Honor, was correct. Mr. McSorley was not unhappy but disappointed at not being selected to sit as a juror. I had tried to avoid admitting what I felt surely would cause my not being chosen, namely, my past occupation as an attorney. Initially upon arriving in the assembly room you are given a questionnaire. It requests you advise what is your occupation. I naturally put in there “retired”. I had hoped that would be the end of the inquiring, but it was not. This all happened around 8 AM and we were upon returning the questionnaire given a number. When your number was called you joined a group to go to a court room. I knew from others that if you made it to noon without being called you would most likely be dismissed. But at around 11 AM my number came up and off I went with 24 others to courtroom No. 6. I learned then that the Florida law only requires six jurors so the odds were already reduced. However the real clincher came when we were seated in the courtroom and the Judge began by explaining the nature of the charge, the name of the parties and witness and then began to question each individual. The questions required you to explain if you are retired what did you did prior thereto. This led to my advising that I had served as Jury Commissioner in Philadelphia and practice a bit of law, but I added, I would very much like to serve. In fact when I first received notice that I was being called I inquired of an attorney friend here about attorney’s eligibility. In Pennsylvania, though there is nothing on the questionnaire we sent to the registered voters I always believed that lawyers were barred from the time the graduated from Law School. This is not the rule here. In fact the particular lawyer I spoke to about it had been called and he served even though he knew the judge and the one of the counsel. It was a civil matter. So in my case from that moment forward in courtroom No.6 it was clear that I was an attorney and wished to serve.
The questioning then went to the counsel for the Prosecution and Defense. It became apparent in the answers of some people they definitely did not want to serve. Some made the point over and over of their connection with law enforcement and their prejudicial feelings regarding this type of case. The case was what is called “car jacking”. I was interested to hear a charge of ‘Burglary’ included in the number of charges. It surprised me since my recollection of the charge in criminal law in Pennsylvania required a home, house, or the like to be broken into in order to burglarize it. In fact the definition of Burglary in OED is “entry into a building with the intent to commit a crime”. The car theft by force was just another form of larceny. I never did find out exactly how Burglary fit into the facts or the law since I was never selected.
During the questioning by counsel one of them, in attempting to gauge the panel members prejudices with regard to lawyers, quietly asked the group, “Know any good lawyer jokes?” I responded “a good lawyer” was an oxymoron. He laughed and so did the panel. I was looking forward to sitting on the Jury since the last time I took part in a Jury trial was 1970. The ADA was one Edward Rendell who went on to bigger and more public jobs like DA and Mayor. I also managed to get into a fracas with the then Jury Commissioner, Nick Kozay. It happened that a columnist Adrian Lewis of the Evening Bulletin interviewed me on the phone the Jury Commission. He did not tell me he was writing a column about my representing people before Juries as appointed counsel. He wrote that I had some inside info as an assistant commissioner. I had no such “inside” info since all that the questionnaire contained was available to both counsels when questioning the prospective juryman. The article was very flattering in its reference to my success with the defense of clients I represented. It was less than so when it came to the picture they used. It was one from my legislative campaign of 1966 when I weighed in close to 210 pounds. I was now the slim marathoner or almost marathoner in 1970 . June noted in some of the family pictures taken around that time I did not look like the Paul of today. She once asked “Who is that?” pointing to what was once me. As a result of the article Nick, the Commissioner, prohibited me from taking any more jury cases, alleging I was advised about that prior to accepting the job. This was not correct but it resulted in my not again trying any jury cases.
As I type these words, February is gone but it will never be forgotten. On the weekend of February 16,17, and 18 we had Discovery XVI. Discovery is a type of retreat run mainly by lay people. It is described as follows, “Discovery Weekend offers a unique opportunity for people to come to a deeper understanding of themselves, to experience God’s unconditional love and acceptance and to gain additional insight into the mission of the church in today’s world.” My job was as registrar. We managed to get 22 candidates, as they are called. It starts on Friday evening, goes through all day Saturday until 9:30 PM and then Sunday from 8:15 AM till 3:00 PM. The highlight was without question for me June’s talk. It was entitled “The Church”. She had great apprehension not being into public speaking but was told you’ll find when you get into before those seated candidates the Holy Spirit will jump in and make it go beyond your best expectations. He did and it was. June’s knees continued to knock as she started but before she knew it she was rolling along. It was a moving talk. It spoke of hers and our journey of Faith. It became the subject for one of the skits on Saturday night after dinner. The tables are required to perform a skit based on some spiritual topic. One table acted out “Paul and June” walking by the Church over several years while staying the neighborhood, with June saying “I would like to go to a service there ” and finally saying “I AM going to this Church on Sunday morning!” I asked if I could join her. Her point in the talk was that it wasn’t the building calling us back to God, though it is a beautiful building, but Himself knocking on our door to wake us up. As June notes in the talk, “the rest as they say is history” Our lives have never been the same since. She shared with the candidates and us the journey she took from hatred of her ex-husband to being forgiven and forgiveness. She had heard a message given by the Pastor on it and it struck home. She practiced it and found the nightmares of years, about her ex’s harming her, never returned. I wish that all of you could have been there to hear her beautiful talk.
We took a bit of R & R for three days after Discovery. We made the trip over to Disney world and our favorite place, Dixie Landing. The ride was longer than usual since the main route, I-4, was closed for about 10 miles due to a brush fire. The fire had by the time we left being going for sometime. We hoped that by the time we were to return that the highway might be open but it wasn’t. However, we used our own detour returning and made better time. The wonders of Disney continue to entertain us. We saw the Laser light parade on Tuesday night and the unbelievable fire works at Epcot on Wednesday night. We ate a lunch in the French Chefs restaurant, had dinners at Epcot in Italy, the Crystal Palace at Magic Kingdom and the Rainforest at Animal Kingdom. One of first stops was to take our ride on “Buzz Lightyear”. He is a Toys Movie character. You ride two at a time in round electrified carts, your spaceship, that you can maneuver right and left. They also have laser guns for each occupant. You travel through make believe space shooting down alien characters, just like Buzz would do. I had beaten June handily the last time we were there, but she caught on to how to handle the shooting and sure enough I lost once again. We usually try to go through more than once, but the parks were very crowded and we had to get what they call a “Fast Pass” for a later time. The waiting time when we first approached it was 40 minutes. We came back with the Fast Pass around 4:45 PM and had only maybe a 20 minute wait before boarding our space ship. We learned that this was “President’s Week” and a number of states close the schools for a week. It was like an early spring break time. We learned there was one more week we do not want to be at Disney World. There were more people there than we had ever experienced in the past. My coming down with extreme tiredness and a stiff an aching neck and shoulder marred the trip. I had had it on Monday before we left when I made a regular visit to my doctor. He said it was muscle spasm and maybe a bit of arthritis and put me on three Advil ever six hours. It reduced the a pain but it knocked me out so we had to change our plans and head home on Friday morning.