Florida Supreme Court Upholds Gov. Ron DeSantis’ Suspension Of Progressive State Attorney Monique Worrell

On Friday, the Florida Supreme Court upheld Gov. Ron DeSantis’ (R) decision to suspend the former progressive state attorney Monique Worrell last year.

DeSantis suspended Worrell in August 2023 through an executive order for neglect of duty and incompetence in failing to prosecute crimes. 

She has a lengthy history of reducing or dropping charges against violent offenders, drug traffickers and serious juvenile offenders.

Florida’s constitution gives the governor explicit power to suspend a state officer for “malfeasance, misfeasance, neglect of duty, drunkenness, incompetence, permanent inability to perform official duties or commission of a felony and may fill the office by appointment for the period of suspension.” 

Before removal, the governor can also reinstate the suspended officer.

The Republican-controlled Florida state senate, authorized to judge the merits of a suspension, eventually removed Worrell from her post.

The governor appointed current ninth Judicial Circuit State Attorney Andrew Bain to replace Worrell. 

One month later, she challenged her suspension at the state Supreme Court, arguing that the Florida governor’s decision was unjustified.

Worrell argued that his justification for suspending her had been too unclear and that the decision interfered with her prosecutorial discretion. 

Most members of the court, five of whom had been appointed by DeSantis, disagreed.

Justice Jorge Labarga had made the six-to-one ruling to uphold the decision on June 6.

The court concluded that the arguments made in DeSantis’ executive order needed to be more specific.

“We cannot agree with Worrell that the allegations in the Executive Order are impermissibly vague, nor that they address conduct that falls within the lawful exercise of prosecutorial discretion,” the majority opinion states.

The court’s opinion noted that Florida’s 20 state attorneys require prosecutorial discretion to talk about the challenges in their respective jurisdictions since Florida is a large state with “varying geographic and cultural influences.”

Labarga wrote that, without discretion and any time state attorneys decide which cases to prosecute, they might “also face suspension and replacement despite having been overwhelmingly elected by the voters of the circuit.”

In their ruling, the justices recognized that the order contained “factual allegations” made by the governor based on data supplied by the Ninth Judicial Circuit but that the Florida Constitution forbids them from examining or confirming the “sufficiency of evidence supporting the facts.”

The court’s opinion defers to the mostly Republican Florida Senate to decide whether the accusations in DeSantis’ executive order are enough to approve his charges of neglect of duty.

“Today’s opinion is disappointing but not a surprise,” Worrell mentioned in a statement about the ruling. “The governor appointed most of the justices on Florida’s Supreme Court. They took the easy way out by refusing to examine whether the governor’s claims had any factual basis. They do not, and the court today, except the dissenting justice, rubber-stamped a political stunt.”

In August 2022, Hillsborough County State Attorney Andrew Warren sued DeSantis over his suspension earlier that month. Their feud started after Warren had been suspended after posting that he would decline cases where he had to prosecute Floridians over the governor’s 15-week abortion ban.

The former Hillsborough County State attorney then claimed that the move was meant to be an act of political sabotage and violated Florida’s constitution. His complaint stated that DeSantis violated his First Amendment rights and that he had been silenced over his stance on abortion.

Warren stated that the governor had “violated the Florida Constitution by” suspending him “without any legal justification, throwing out the results of a fair and free election.”

DeSantis’ office released a statement declaring that the ex-attorney’s case was “baseless” and did not have any true legal standing.