Progressive Florida Prosecutor Ousted by DeSantis Asks Federal Court To Reinstate Him

A Florida state prosecutor who was suspended by Governor DeSantis after he pledged not to enforce the state’s new abortion laws, has asked a federal court to reinstate him.In a lawsuit filed Wednesday in the Northern District of Florida, Andrew Warren said Mr. DeSantis violated his First Amendment rights and overstepped his authority as governor when he suspended the Tampa-area prosecutor earlier this month. “In our country there are protections for freedom and limits on power,” Mr. Warren said at a news conference at Tallahassee after filing the suit. “Ron DeSantis may not like them, he may not respect them, but he does have to follow them.”Mr. Warren said he was blindsided by the announcement and that he was escorted out of his office that day by an armed sheriff’s deputy. His lawsuit seeks his reinstatement to office and to enjoin the governor from retaliating against him going forward.“By challenging this illegal abuse of power, we can make sure that no governor can toss out the results of an election because he doesn’t like the outcome,” Mr. Warren said.Mr. DeSantis, a Republican, signed an executive order August 4 removing Mr. Warren, a Democrat twice elected to his post in Hillsborough County, for what he called “neglect of duty” and incompetence. The prosecutor’s decision to “knowingly permit” criminal activity in his district and his “blanket refusal” to enforce laws “is not an exercise of prosecutorial discretion but tantamount to a functional veto of state law,” the order said.“Over the last few years individual prosecutors take it upon themselves to determine which laws they like and will enforce, and which laws they don’t like and won’t enforce, and the results of this in cities like Los Angeles and San Francisco have been catastrophic,” Mr. DeSantis said when the order was signed.During his term, Mr. Warren — who was first elected in 2016 — signed on to two separate statements issued by a national network of progressive prosecutors called Fair and Just Prosecution. One of the statements decried the “criminalization” of transgender individuals and gender-reassignment therapies. In the second, Mr. Warren vowed not to enforce a Florida abortion law that took effect in April outlawing abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy.The executive director of Fair and Just Prosecution, Miriam Krinsky, called Mr. DeSantis’s removal of Mr. Warren an “authoritarian takeover” motivated by the governor’s own political agenda. Voters in Mr. Warren’s district elected him for what she called the “common sense reforms” on which he campaigned.Mr. Warren, she said, exercised the same prosecutorial discretion that other states attorneys across Florida employ on a regular basis. The idea that he is neglecting his duty is nonsense, she said.“If these are grounds for removal, we’d be hard pressed to find any elected prosecutor whose job is safe from the governor’s tyrannical whims,” Ms. Krinsky said in a statement. “This craven power-grab undermines the freedom of the people of Florida, which Governor DeSantis frequently claims to be committed to defending. We hope the court recognizes this abuse of power for what it is.”

Progressive Florida Prosecutor Ousted by DeSantis Asks Federal Court To Reinstate Him

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