Civil-Rights Lawyer Eyes State Rep Seat

Paul Garlinghouse has fought the law. Now he wants to help make the law.

Garlinghouse, a local attorney who has successfully sued cops for allegedly beating up immigrants and represented arrested anti-police misconduct protesters, submitted petitions to the Registrar of Voters Office Tuesday in an effort to gain a spot on a Aug. 14 Democratic primary ballot for the 97th General Assembly District seat.

He’s looking to challenge first-term Democratic State Rep. Al Paolillo Jr. Garlinghouse needs to have the signatures of 290 registered Democratic voters on his submitted petitions to qualify for the ballot; he submitted around 300. The Registrar of Voters Office has until next Tuesday to certify the signatures. It will be a close call: Candidates generally need a bigger cushion of extra signatures to qualify because some prove invalid.

The 97th District encompasses the New Haven neighborhoods east of the Quinnipiac River, including Quinnipiac Meadows, Fair Haven Heights, the Annex, Morris Cove; as well as a sliver of Fair Haven itself, along the water and parts of Chatham Square.

In an interview on WNHH FM’s ​“Dateline New Haven” program, Garlinghouse, who’s 54, did not criticize Paolillo. He said he’s running to offer voter a choice, not to knock the incumbent.

His work representing immigrants, police protesters, and most of all low-income clients in family court cases motivated him to seek public office.

For instance, he participated in efforts to convince state legislators not to renew the term of Judge Jane Emons after, he said, she botched a case involving a family court client. That campagin succeeded; Emons was not reappointed. But too often judges routinely get reappointed without needed scrutiny, Garglinghouse argued.

“For the most part I think think judges tdo a good job,” but some don’t, he said. ​“Judges have to follow the law.”

The same holds for cops, Garlinghosue argued: New Haven ​“in general” has good cops. But when cops do wrong, or when ​“structural problems” lead to poor policing, officers and the department need to be held accountable, he said. Like in cases of ​“extreme brutality” he said some of his immigrant clients have experienced in town. He also represented protesters arrested by state cops in what some called a ​“police riot” for which an internal investigation cleared a trooper with a history of brutality.

If elected, Garlinghouse said, he would support proposals like one by New Haven State Sen. Gary Winfield and State Rep. Robyn Porter to prevent cops from reviewing body camera video before filing reports about controversial incidents. He said he wants to eliminate ​“opportunities police have to rehearse their stories and coordinate their stores in order to lie.” Officers need to be treated the same as other witnesses, he argued: ​“The fact that you have a badge shouldn’t give you special privileges.” He cited the coordinated lying by former East Haven cops who were eventually found by federal investigators to have produced false reports about cases in which they brutalized Latino immigrants and arrested them as well as a Fair Haven priest on false charges.

Garlinghouse supports another Porter bill to end shackling of pregnant prison inmates. (Both Porter proposals came up short in this year’s legislative session.)

If elected, he said he would seek a seat on the Judiciary Committee in order to support those kinds of proposals and to participate in the vetting of judges and prospective judges. Garlinghouse said he’d like to help create a better ​“proactive” system for trackign complaints against the state police and make it easier to bring ​“meritorious” cases against troopers; and to improve the recording of statics on racial prfiling.

Garlinghouse said he supports raising marginal tax rates on annual incomes over $1 million and legalizing recreational marijuana use for adults.

“If he does qualify [for a primary], I welcome him to the race,” Paolillo said in an interview Wednesday.

A district party convention unanimously endorsed Paolillo’s reelection effort. He said he attributes his accomplishments in office to the work of a great ​“team”— New Haven’s state legislative delegation— as well as the work of neighbors. He spoke of the delegation’s success in convincing the state to declare a moratorium on hunting along a longer stretch than before of the Quinnipiac River, the receipt of $5 million for a study on how to better connect trains to the port, and a neighborhood clean-up of a boat launch by the river in which he recently participated.

“There’s a lot of work to cotninue to do,” Paolillo said, and he’s looing forward to doing it.

Click on the above audio file or the Facebook Live video below for the full interview with Paul Garlinghouse on WNHH FM’s ​“Dateline New Haven” program.