Florida Supreme Court upholds DeSantis’ suspension as prosecutor

In a 6-1 decision, the Florida Supreme Court upheld the suspension of Attorney General Monique Worrell by Governor Ron DeSantis (R-FL).

DeSantis suspended Worrell, who represented Orange and Osceola counties in the 9th Judicial District, on August 9, 2023, for “neglecting her duty to diligently prosecute crimes within her jurisdiction.”

DeSantis said Worrell had blocked her firm’s lawyers from calling for “minimum mandatory sentences” for both drug and gun offenses so that “violent criminals could escape the full consequences of their criminal conduct.”

In his executive order, DeSantis noted that the Osceola County Sheriff’s Office referred 58 non-homicide firearm robbery cases to prosecutors in 2021 and 2022, but only one of those cases resulted in a mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years.

A month after her suspension, Worrell filed a petition arguing that DeSantis had failed to cite any specific conduct that would give him the authority to suspend her under state law.

“The Executive Order is invalid because it fails to identify any specific conduct by Ms. Worrell that, if true, would constitute grounds for suspension for dereliction of duty or incompetence,” the petition states. “Instead, the Order falsely attempts to infer her ‘practices and policies’ from inappropriate data, but even if such practices and policies existed, they would not constitute grounds for suspension.”

However, the court found Worrell’s claim that the allegations in the executive order were vague to be false.

“We have said that a suspension order does not interfere with the lawful exercise of a prosecutor’s criminal discretion if it is alleged that that discretion is not actually exercised in individual cases, but that general policies have led to categorical enforcement practices,” the majority opinion said.

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Although Worrell remains barred from serving as district attorney, she is still eligible to run for re-election and is the only Democratic candidate on the ballot.

Worrell was first elected in 2020.