Suspended Orlando-area State Attorney Monique Worrell on Wednesday asked the Florida Supreme Court to overturn Gov. Ron DeSantis’ decision last month to oust her, saying he had no legal basis for the move.
“To the extent the governor disagrees with how Ms. Worrell is lawfully exercising her prosecutorial discretion, such a disagreement does not constitute a basis for suspension from elected office,” Worrell’s lawyers wrote in a 46-page petition seeking to restore her to the job. “Ms. Worrell was elected to serve as state attorney, not the governor. Mere disagreement between a governor and a state attorney about where within the lawful range of discretion that discretion should be exercised falls far short of the constitutionally required showing of neglect of duty or incompetence.”
Worrell, who was elected in 2020 as state attorney in the 9th Judicial Circuit in Orange and Osceola counties, disputed a series of arguments raised in DeSantis’ Aug. 9 executive order suspending her. Among other things, the order said Worrell “authorized or allowed practices or policies that have systematically permitted violent offenders, drug traffickers, serious-juvenile offenders, and pedophiles to evade incarceration, when otherwise warranted under Florida law.”
Wednesday’s petition said the order “fails to allege any facts relating to Ms. Worrell’s own conduct (either acts or omissions) that would constitute neglect of duty or incompetence.”
“(Unable) even to identify any ‘practices or policies’ of Ms. Worrell, the executive order instead attempts to infer that she has adopted practices or policies that result in reduced incarceration rates by comparing incarceration rate data from the Ninth Judicial Circuit to that of other Florida judicial circuits,” the petition said. “Such data, even if accurate, reflects a host of factors unrelated to the practices or policies of the state attorney and thus cannot be relied on to demonstrate that Ms. Worrell has practices or policies that result in lower incarceration rates. Moreover, because there is no duty for a state attorney to maximize incarceration rates, lower than average incarceration rates are no evidence of neglect of duty or incompetence.”
The Florida Constitution gives the governor the authority to suspend elected officials. The ultimate decision about removal from office rests with the Florida Senate.
The Senate last month advised a lawyer for Worrell that it would put proceedings in “abeyance” if she challenged the suspension in court. DeSantis appointed Andrew Bain, who recently served as an Orange County judge, to replace Worrell as state attorney.
Worrell’s suspension came a little more than a year after DeSantis suspended Hillsborough County State Attorney Andrew Warren in a highly controversial move. Worrell and Warren are Democrats, while the governor is a Republican.
Warren challenged his suspension at the Florida Supreme Court, but justices ruled in June that he waited too long to bring the case. Warren also is fighting the suspension in federal court, with the issue pending at the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
Worrell’s suspension came after she drew criticism from police union leaders who said her office should have done more to keep behind bars a man accused of shooting two Orlando police officers.
“We had a duty to act to protect the public from this dereliction of duty,” DeSantis said in announcing the suspension.
The 15-page executive order alleged, in part, that Worrell’s policies prevented or discouraged assistant state attorneys from seeking minimum mandatory sentences for gun crimes and drug trafficking offenses.
Worrell’s practices and policies constitute “abuse of prosecutorial discretion” and reflect “a systemic failure to enforce incarcerative penalties called for by Florida law,” the order said.
But the petition filed Tuesday disputed the bases for such arguments. It asked the Supreme Court to rule that DeSantis had exceeded his constitutional authority and said Worrell should be reinstated with back pay.
“The suspension power is not a limitless ‘take my word for it’ license for the governor to suspend anyone with whom the governor has a policy dispute,” the petition said. “In addition to Ms. Worrell’s constitutional right to adequate notice to mount a defense and the Senate’s need for adequate factual allegations to determine whether to remove or reinstate her, the voters and other elected state officials also are entitled to a more detailed recitation of Ms. Worrell’s supposed neglect or incompetence. Indeed, the governor owes the voters in the Ninth Judicial Circuit a clearly reasoned, facially valid order of suspension so they can understand precisely what alleged conduct purportedly justified Ms. Worrell’s suspension from office, especially where the order appears to find fault with the very platform on which Ms. Worrell was elected.”
–Jim Saunders, News Service of Florida
Atwp says
He is white and crazy, she is black. Come to your own conclusion.
The Geode says
Did you say the same for the WHITE guy he did the same thing to? If you gonna throw “racism” into everything, try to be at least informed on what you’re talking about. That way, people like me won’t have to roll their eyes with pitying sympathy…
Thurston Howell III says
Ms.Worrell has done a TERRIBLE job and NEEDS TO GO! Defendants love to go to court with her. There will be very LAX punishment! FIRE HER ASAP & Save Floridians alot of money! Bye D.A. Unemployment line for you girl!
Laurel says
Dear Thurston: You were there?
jake says
You were not there either, she didn’t do her job. This has NOTHING to do with race, this has everything to do with “doing your job”, she didn’t. Your hatred for DeSantis exceeds your capability to determine a factual outcome. Stop being the fool everyone thinks you are.
Laurel says
Jake: I don’t hate anyone, but I do dislike what DeSantis is trying to do to this state, and this country. He is getting rid of duly elected Democrats. I’m not a Democrat, but I see what he is doing.
It is interesting that you know what everyone thinks. That’s quite a talent!
Land of no turn signals says says
I don’t give a rats ass what color she is,she just sucks at her job.
Laurel says
and your proof is…
Ray W. says
Let’s just go step by step through the refresher course.
1. Judges swear a unique judicial oath. As the ultimate officer of the court, a judge swears, among other things, to be neutral and detached/fair and impartial, along with upholding the constitution. Judges can be held accountable for what they say and do, according to the judicial canon of ethics, with a Judicial Qualifications Commission available to review allegations of wrongdoing and, ultimately, the Florida Supreme Court. They cannot lie in the courtroom in their official capacity as a judge.
2. Prosecutors swear a unique prosecutorial oath. As an officer of the court, not only is a prosecutor accountable for what he or she does, he or she is also required to seek justice, along with upholding the constitution. Prosecutors can be held accountable by for Florida Bar for what they say and do and must abide by the Rules of Professional Responsibility and, ultimately, the Florida Supreme Court. Like judges, they cannot lie in the courtroom.
3. Criminal defense attorneys are officers of the court. As such, they, too, are accountable for what they say or do, but they have their own unique requirement, in that they have a great role in ensuring that their client’s voice is heard in the courtroom. If procedural due process is defined as notice and a right to be heard (it is in numerous court decisions), then a defense attorney must be a chameleon for each client, in order to ensure that each person’s voice is heard in the courtroom. Defense attorneys can be held accountable by the Florida Bar and, ultimately, the Supreme Court; they, too, swear an oath upon becoming a lawyer when they are sworn into the Florida Bar by a judge; they cannot lie in court.
4. Politicians from all parties swear an oath to uphold the constitution upon taking office, but not one of them is required by their oath of office to tell you the truth. Not presidents. Not governors. Not senators. Not congressmen and women. Not county council members. Not city commissioners.
It may very well be that you, Land of no turn signals, have no idea what you are commenting about. Ms. Worrell might actually be one of the best prosecutors in the state.
I have waited several years to fully tell this story.
On the first Tuesday night in January 1986, I attended Frank Schaub’s first annual State of the Circuit address in Sarasota, alongside approximately 40 other prosecutors. The 12th Circuit comprised DeSot0, Manatee, and Sarasota counties. Mr. Schaub had been elected State Attorney in 1984 and took office on the first Tuesday in January 1985. I had been sworn into office as an Assistant State Attorney that Monday morning. I had two full days of experience.
After a few pleasantries, Mr. Schaub announced: “You are not making enough mistakes!”
To say that he got my attention was an understatement.
Mr. Schaub went on to state that what he meant was that there would never be a shortage of people who would complain about whatever decisions we made as prosecutors. That there would always be people available to tell a reporter that we had mistakenly taken a case to trial, or that we had made a bad decision in a case.
Mr. Schaub then told the assembled attorneys that anyone can win the easy cases, that anyone can convict a man who confesses to having cocaine in his pocket, so long as the cocaine tested positive at the lab. Mr. Schaub stated that winning the easy cases does not teach anyone anything. He instructed us to settle those cases, so that we could focus on trying the tough cases. Those cases, he reasoned, whether we won or lost, would teach us far more than winning any easy case and that losing a tough case would make us better prosecutors over time. He instructed us that the sole determinant was whether we believed that we possessed sufficient evidence that, if accepted as true by the jury, would satisfy each element of each crime charged. If we believed we had such evidence, he would back us, no matter what happened. If a jury rejected the evidence and a defense attorney then told a reporter that he had warned any one of us that we were going to lose the case, he said he would back us in the ensuing article, no matter what.
Mr. Schaub then ordered all of us all to go out and make mistakes.
Over the next 18 months or so, even after coming to my home circuit to prosecute, believing that I had permission to lose cases without recrimination, I took 118 cases to trial, both jury and non-jury (I stopped breaking down the results of each trial at that point). That first month in 1986 as a prosecutor, I filed over 150 juvenile petitions. When I was a misdemeanor prosecutor in DeLand, according to the monthly office statistics, I was prosecuting approximately 150 defendants a month, with some 250 case numbers assigned to me each month (some defendants racked up multiple cases in the month). When I was a senior prosecutor in a felony division, the office statistics in 1995 established that I closed 504 cases that year. No one prosecutor can ever try that many cases each month. I settled the simple cases so I could take on the tough ones. In time, I gained a reputation for trying the tough ones; I received calls to take on trials in other courts whenever a prosecutor had a family emergency, sometimes with a few hours’ notice, sometimes after the jury had been picked. I would ask that an investigator meet me with the file outside the courtroom so I could read it before making an opening statement. A fellow prosecutor’s father passed away on a Sunday evening. I handled her trial week docket, selecting juries and trying cases. Another prosecutor hurt his back. I handled his trial week docket, selecting juries and trying cases. Another prosecutor had picked too many juries, and the judge was threatening to try cases on the weekend if he didn’t settle more of his cases. I picked up one of his case files and started the trial at 6:30 in the evening, trying the case into the night. The judge admonished me because I was reading the file outside the courtroom as he was instructing the already picked jury.
Since I did my own intake, I handled some 700 felony cases in 1995. Not all of those cases involved complaint affidavits. For example, I handled all vehicular deaths in southeast Volusia County. Since statistics have to be sent to a national database for each vehicular death, I had to review every such traffic death investigation report (some 20 or 25 cases per year), even if it involved a single car accident with a sole occupant who had died. I had to sign, under oath, that all of the facts in the traffic death report were accurate, even if the report comprised some 80 pages. If a trooper left out the tread depth of the tires, I had to contact him or her and ask that the information be provided before I could sign off on it, knowing all along that no one could ever be prosecuted. In the 80’s, the Volusia County Clerk’s Office was assigning felony case numbers to roughly 10,000 complaint affidavits per year. The Daytona Beach Police Department made some 2500 cocaine cases in one year in the mid-80’s, when the crack cocaine scene blew up far beyond expectations. The 9th Circuit, encompassing Orange and Osceola counties, now has a population base some 4 times that of Volusia’s current population.
Is it possible to argue that Governor DeSantis can cherry-pick any argument he wants from such a large database? Is it possible that you are gullible enough to believe a governor who has not sworn to tell you the truth as part of his oath of office?
Within a few days of Mr. Schaub’s order that I go out and make mistakes, a senior prosecutor called me into his office. I have commented on this event a couple of times before. The senior prosecutor, complete with a gravelly voice, told me that I needed to know something about my father (he used the term “daddy”). He said he had been in a room with my father when my father called Governor Kirk in 1968 to discuss the outcome of an investigation conducted by my father at the order of the governor. Frank Schaub, at that time, too, was the elected State Attorney in the 12th Circuit (he had become a judge after 1968 and then resigned his position to return to the State Attorney position in 1985). Mr. Schaub had investigated alleged criminal conduct by the Sarasota sheriff, a political enemy of Governor Kirk. Mr. Schaub had deemed the evidence insufficient to prosecute the sheriff. Governor Kirk had then ordered my father, the elected State Attorney in the 7th Circuit, to take over the case and investigate the sheriff a second time. My father travelled to Sarasota to review the files, interview witnesses and conduct a complete investigation. At the conclusion of his effort, my father called the governor.
The senior prosecutor told me that he could only hear my father’s side of the conversation, and that he heard my father tell Governor Kirk that he would not be prosecuting the sheriff. After a pause, my father then told the governor that one of two things were about to happen. He was calling a press conference in 30 minutes. Either he was going to tell reporters that he had conducted a full investigation, and that when he told the governor that he would not be prosecuting the sheriff, the governor had removed him from office, or that he was going to tell the reporters that he had conducted a full investigation, and that he was not going to be prosecuting the sheriff. Either way, he was not going to prosecute the sheriff.
The senior prosecutor then told me that my father concluded the telephone call by telling the governor: “By the way, f**k you!”
The governor then ordered the Chancellor of the Exchequer to stop issuing paychecks to my father. It took a legislative act to return my father to the payroll. My father then resigned his position, knowing the governor could do it again and again and that the legislature met every other year at that time.
Vengeful Republican governors have been threatening to remove prosecutors from office since at least 1968.
Prosecutors, by oath of office, cannot abuse the powers of their office by seeking injustice, as they determine it to be, on a case-by-case basis. But no prosecutor can be effective if they hold office in a constant state of fear. Make no mistake. Fear is the operative word here. Mr. Schaub wanted us all to be free from fear in order to take on the unwinnable cases that needed to be tried. Mr. Boyles, the elected State Attorney in my home circuit at that time, held the same view. Governors do not even have to tell the truth to the public to sow fear.
Laurel says
Ray W.: Great story! Once again, you have written something I can learn from, and I often read your writings more than once.
It’s a shame that social media, opinion shows and radio shows make it easy for us to be armchair experts.
Thanks again.
Ray W. says
Thank you, Laurel.
Elected leaders who instill confidence in those to whom power is delegated should be celebrated.
In my early years as a prosecutor, conviction rates were seldom discussed. A few years after I became a prosecutor, an attorney ran against my boss, spouting my boss’s low conviction rates as his campaign strategy. At that time, only one of the 20 elected prosecutors in the state had a conviction rate above 70%.
Since I had a math and statistics background, I was given the statewide prosecution statistics compiled from the previous year and asked to find out (at night and at home) where the challenger was getting his numbers. I poured through the materials and found each one and provided an explanation and counterstrategy. Another prosecutor called a Miami prosecutor and sought out how the one circuit had a conviction rate approaching 90%.
We soon learned about the concept of “lean filing.” If a man was arrested for five burglaries, the Miami prosecutors would file one and insist that he plea as charged, else they file the other four and pile on the charges. This approach was foreign to me. I filed the charges that I thought I could prove and then engaged in what we called sentence bargaining. The Miami prosecutors were engaging in charge bargaining.
Since statewide statistics at that time were based on charges actually filed by prosecutors and not on the number of charges filed by police in their arrest affidavits, it became apparent to me just how easy it would be to manipulate the statistics. Nonetheless, we, as a circuit, kept filing the five burglary charges we thought we could prove and pled down to three. The “lean filing” approach had a 100% conviction rate, but a far lower number of charges to which the defendant actually pled. My approach resulted in a lower conviction rate (60%), but more actual charge convictions. We kept filing the charges we thought we could prove and decided not to adopt the “lean filing” approach. But other circuits began adopting the “lean filing” approach and conviction rates around the state slowly began to rise.
In what I consider an inevitable yet erroneous and lamentable event, the News-Journal published the statewide statistics rate in an in-depth article, depicting the Tanner administration as having the second-lowest conviction rate in the state, at roughly 60%, as I recall. The next year, the paper published another article, with the Tanner administration being the lowest in the state, at 59%. The next year, our circuit had a 90% conviction rate. The number of cases assigned a case number by the clerk’s office dropped from over 10,000 to under 6,000. Prosecutors doing intake began dropping weak cases and lean filed on what they did file on. My approach, one of taking the tough cases that I believed in to trial, disappeared, because a not guilty verdict lowered one’s conviction rate. Conviction rates became the key focus. Prosecution turned into a fear-based enterprise, but I was gone by then. Lose too many cases and you get admonished or even fired. Keep up your conviction rate and you get rewarded. The world of prosecution has never been the same.
Yes, I was rehired when Steve Alexander defeated Tanner in 1992. One of the main platforms of Steve’s campaign strategy was pointing out that, in St. Johns County, prosecutors were dropping some 75% of felony arrest cases made by police, yet they had an extraordinarily high conviction rate. I told Steve that I would come back on the condition that I would never have to look after my conviction rates. Many months later, I was brought into the office of the chief assistant and told that my conviction rate was too low and that I would have to bring it up to 93%, the office’s goal for the year. I gritted my teeth and began lean filing.
When I ran for state attorney in 1996, my campaign platform was based, in part, on doing away with the “lean filing” approach. My view remains the same. If an officer arrests on 10 counts and I think I can prove eight, I should file eight and charge bargain, instead of filing three and threatening to add to the charges if the person doesn’t plea. Conviction rates are a mirage. Fear infects the profession.
Laurel says
Ray W.: That is both sad and frightening! Bean counting. Simple math tells us that if 100 people are convicted 100%, then there is no innocence, obviously inaccurate. Every single person charged is guilty. Why bother? It also tells me that these prosecutors, like the politicians, are more interested in surviving their jobs than pursuing the truth. Look how it’s effecting voters, who find these statistics as the ultimate truth, as politicians are telling their constituents, and misleading their constituents.
Thank you for enlightening us. I just hope the naysayers are reading.
Sherry says
Good on Ms. Worrell for this lawsuit! I sincerely hope she prevails!
Here again fascist desantis is blatantly subverting the will of the people by removing a duly “elected” (by 67% of the vote) Democrat official, and replacing them with Andrew Bain, a very “conservative” member of the Federalist Society. Straight up “authoritarian”! SOP for the trump Republican party! Don’t like those “elected” Democrats, just replace them with your own puppets! To hell with what the voters want!
If you are foolish enough to believe this is a “one off”, this same thing is happening around the entire country . . . just take a good read:
DeSantis has reveled in vilifying left-leaning prosecutors as he inveighs against “woke” politics. He has suspended two Florida prosecutors, contending they have broken the law by abusing their discretion. Just last week, State Attorney Monique Worrell accused DeSantis of using her to invigorate his flailing presidential campaign, saying the governor “needed to get back in the media in some positive way that would be red meat for his base.”
The Florida governor in fact touted suspending Worrell at an event in must-win Iowa. His critiques of wayward prosecutors have extended beyond Florida: when he moved last year to neutralize State Attorney Andrew Warren, DeSantis cautioned against the “catastrophic” policies implemented by progressive DAs in Los Angeles and San Francisco who “take it upon themselves to determine which laws they like and will enforce.”
It was a familiar line of attack. Republicans and the conservative media frequently play up the woes of Democrat-run California cities, which in recent years has meant a heavy focus on prosecutors like Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón and former San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin.
But the critique is not just coming from red states. Again and again, voters in staunchly blue California counties have elected left-leaning prosecutors and then moved to recall them before they finish a term. Boudin was ousted in a nationally-watched vote last year. Gascón has faced repeated recall attempts backed by law enforcement and conservative donors. And now Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price is facing a recall push just months into her tenure, as I reported Tuesday.
Fellow-travelers in the movement have faced pressure across the country: Republicans have sought to remove Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner; Nueces County, Texas District Attorney Mark A. Gonzalez; and St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner, who stepped down after Missouri’s attorney general sought to boot her from office. Republican legislatures have pushed bills to curtail prosecutorial powers.
Tony Mack says
If you are an elected Democratic member of the Florida State legislature — your days are numbered. DeSantis has proven he has no regard for elected officials if they have a “D” after their name on the ballot. The precedent has been set — don’t dare register opposition to the Tallahassee Tyrant or you will be gone. And his Taliban legislature will do nothing to uphold the validity of a free election. Actually, if you are a registered Democrat in our state — our days are numbered as well. Think Germany in the Thirties! Won’t be long now.