by David Chapman
Staff Writer
Paul Daragjati knows what it’s like to defend the streets of Jacksonville.
The experience behind the badge is what makes the officer-turned-attorney a key fit in defending officers of the Fraternal Order of Police in the courtroom as the organization’s general counsel.
“I’ve been in their shoes, I’ve been on those streets and I know what officers are going through each day,” said Daragjati, “which is why I think I fit in well here.”
Daragjati has been the FOP’s general counsel for nearly two years now, but his path has had many stops.
He graduated from the University of North Florida in 1993 with a degree in criminal justice, but went directly to work instead of pursuing a law degree.
“I was tired of school,” said Daragjati, with a smile. “I was ready to get out and work and make a little money.”
He joined the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office shortly after graduation and was designated to be a corrections officer at the jail.
“It was eye opening,” he said of his four-month assignment. “That element of society is pretty negative, but it was a good experience for me.”
Daragjati was then a patrol officer in Northwest Jacksonville until 1999, an experience he said has made him a better lawyer.
“I learned a lot about people,” he said. “I have been in a thousand living rooms, listened to stories and seen what’s going on in everyday lives.”
A three-month stint in the JSO Sex Crimes Unit has had a lasting effect on him, especially when it comes to looking out for his wife, Sonila, and daughters, Rose and Anna.
“It’s rewarding to put people away who commit those crimes,” he said. “But after seeing some of those things you tend to build a shell and develop quirks.”
In May 2001, he left JSO to pursue the law degree from Florida State University, a goal he could set aside no more. He wanted to earn it before 10 years at JSO, as police can retire after 20 years of service and he didn’t want to get “over the hump.”
Back in school, it was a rough time for Daragjati and his family – they rented their home, Sonila and the girls moved in with parents, and Daragjati rented a small apartment near the FSU College of Law. The next couple years meant staying in Tallahassee Monday-Thursday, depending on his class schedule, and making the trek across I-10 back to Jacksonville to spend time with his family.
“I’d be out around 4:30 a.m. Monday morning and come straight back once classes were over Thursday or Friday,” he said. “My oldest daughter remembers it all ... it was tough for all of us, but we got through it.”
His last year in school, 2003, he interned at the State Attorney’s Office under Harry Shorstein and upon graduation received a full-time job, one he kept for three years.
“The best and worst thing about the State Attorney’s Office are kind of one in the same,” he said. “You get an amount of trial experience that you really can’t get anywhere else ... but the volume of work (is high). You get trial experience that you really can’t get anywhere else.”
It was at the State Attorney’s Office that his name kept coming up when Nelson Cuba was looking for a general counsel for the FOP.
“Paul’s a great guy and his background is a perfect mixture for us,” said Cuba. “He understands, he’s been there and the officers know that. He came back to us.”
At the FOP, Daragjati defends police officers in “labor employee defense” (a term he coined), federal civil cases and police shootings.
Labor employee defense, as he calls it, refers to cases involving adverse employee discipline, arbitration hearing representation and perceived improper termination. On average, those cases take around nine months to complete.
Federal civil case defense comes about when someone sues a police officer in federal court, since an officer cannot be sued at the local level in their work capacity. Such cases can include claims of misuse of power and false arrest and can take a while — up to a year to litigate or settle.
It’s Daragjati’s third area of defense that tends to draw the most headlines.
When an officer is involved in a shooting, Daragjati or Katie Harris , the organization’s other general counsel who was an attorney in the Public Defender’s Office, is called directly to the scene to speak with the officer and begin building a case.
Knowing his background, many of the officers tend to open up quickly to Daragjati, he said. It’s the instant rapport that saves the process time and effort.
He’s in constant contact with the officer until their Response to Resistance appearance, during which the officer appears before a board composed of police officials who question the officer and determine an outcome. That outcome can be to clear the officer, require additional training or launch a detailed investigation into the shooting.
Daragjati has assisted more than 50 officers in nearly 40 shootings (some cases have multiple officers) and he said the process has been whittled to around four months.
“The sooner we’re able to get it done, the better,” he said. “That way the officers can get on with their jobs without worrying anymore.”
Defending officers is something Daragjati enjoys and takes pride in — it’s also something he sees himself doing for a while.
“I’ll do it until I do something else,” he jokes. “Or until they kick me out.”
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