On Thursday, the Florida Supreme Court ruled in favor of Governor Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.) over his decision to remove a far-left prosecutor from her post.
As Fox News reports, DeSantis first suspended State Attorney Monique Worrel in August of 2023, accusing her of “dereliction of duty” due to her soft-on-crime policies. Worrel subsequently sued the DeSantis Administration and demanded that she be reinstated, claiming that her firing was an “arbitrary, unsubstantiated exercise of the suspension power.”
The Florida Supreme Court ruled 6-1 in DeSantis’ favor.
“We cannot agree with Worrel 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’s opinion declared.
“We have said that a suspension order does not infringe on a state attorney’s lawful exercise of prosecutorial discretion where it alleges that such discretion is, in fact, not being exercised in individual cases but, rather, that generalized policies have resulted in categorical enforcement practices.”
DeSantis had previously touted his removal of Worrel as a major accomplishment during his ultimately unsuccessful campaign for president.
“The practices and policies of her office have allowed murderers, other violent offenders, and dangerous drug traffickers to receive extremely reduced sentences and escape the full consequences of their criminal conduct. In some cases, these offenders have evaded incarceration altogether,” the governor said shortly after her firing.
“State Attorney Worrel’s practices undermine Florida law and endanger the safety, security, and welfare of the communities that Ms. Worrell was elected to serve.”
When she was first elected in 2020, Worrel’s campaign was supported by Our Vote Our Voice, a left-wing group that had received $1 million from Democracy Now, a far-left group supported by George Soros. Our Vote Our Voice subsequently spent $1.5 million in support of Worrel’s campaign.
DeSantis had previously fired another prosecutor in the state in August of 2022, when he removed Hillsborough County State Attorney Andrew Warren over his refusal to enforce the state’s abortion ban. That removal was also upheld in court at the federal level.
