Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is facing a lawsuit from
Hillsborough County State Attorney Andrew Warren, who DeSantis had suspended for
essentially exercising his free speech and prosecutorial judgment.
Now Warren was dismissed from his post for pledging, he would not prosecute cases
stemming from Florida's 15 week abortion ban and potential bans on gender affirming
care, to give you a little more background on what's happening in Florida.
In June, the day that Dobbs v.Jackson ruling was handed down,
effectively ending the federal right to abortion access.
Warren joined dozens of prosecutors around the country and
signing a pledge that they would refrain from using the limited criminal
legal system resources to criminalize personal medical decisions.
And back in 2021, Warren also signed a similar joint statement with other elected
prosecutors, affirming that health care decisions should be private discretion.
And said, they would not use their office to promote the criminalization of
gender affirming healthcare or transgender people.
Now, here is Andrew Warren elaborating on the lawsuit that he has filed against
Governor Rhonda DeSantis.
>> I came to Tallahassee this morning to file a federal lawsuit challenging
Governor DeSantis is blatant abuse of power and suspending me from office.
The governor has broken two laws.
He's violated my First Amendment rights by retaliating against me for
speaking out on abortion and transgender rights.
And he's violated the Florida constitution by removing me from office without any
legal just, throwing out the results of a fair and free election.
We filed a lawsuit to make sure that even though Ron DeSantis is governor.
The First Amendment still has meaning, Florida's constitution still has meaning
and elections and democracy still have meaning, come join us in this fight.
Andrewwarrenfl.com.
We must defend democracy now.
>> Now, it's important to note that Andrew Warren wasn't appointed by some
government official in Florida.
He was elected into the position that he has now been suspended from
being able to carry out.
And Warren has been in office since 2016 and
was re elected in 2020 with more than 53% of the vote.
And in response, a spokesperson from DeSantis's office argues, quote,
it's not surprising Warren who was suspended for refusing to follow the law,
would file a legally baseless lawsuit challenging his suspension.
We look forward to responding in court.
Well, luckily joining us now is Andrew Warren the man who has been
persecuted against by DeSantis as part of his little political stunt and
his endless culture war.
Warren, thank you so much for joining us, I really appreciate it.
>> Thanks so much for having me.
So, I wanna start off with the precedent here.
Is there precedent?
That indicates the governor of Florida has in the past essentially
just suspended any person in elected office in the state, that he just
doesn't like because his prosecutorial judgment doesn't jive with his.
>> No, none whatsoever.
I mean, the governor has limited power under the Florida constitution to
suspend an elected official and it's usually reserved for situations where
someone has committed a crime or where someone has become truly incompetent.
Like physically or mentally unable to do the job as if they had a stroke,
for example, for the governor to suspend me for something that I said,
for speaking out, is just a dangerous attack on free speech.
>> I mean, I totally agree with you on that.
And it's so brazen, in that he targeted you, not only for your political speech,
but because of your political beliefs and political views.
Something that we hear republicans like him claimed they're persecuted for,
when in reality they're the ones who are running around doing
the persecuting [LAUGH].
It's pretty amazing.
And so- >> Brazen is the right word for it.
The people who claim to support the rule of law, who claim to follow
the constitution, really only like to do so when it's convenient for them,
when it serves their own political agenda or their own political narrative.
>> So let's talk a little bit about prosecutorial judgment because,
I was under the assumption, I could be wrong,
that prosecutors get to decide what they pursue criminally, right?
Like if someone has broken the law, you get to decide as a prosecutor whether or
not it makes sense to pursue charges against that individual or
group of individuals.
And so, explain just how much leeway prosecutors in Florida
have in regard to being able to use their judgment?
>> Well, the prosecutors have absolute discretion to do their jobs, and
that I mean,
that's the language that the Supreme Court has used in describing our authority.
And it's not that prosecutors should be deciding what laws they're going to
enforce or not enforce.
Its prosecutors are exercising that discretion in terms of promoting
public safety, in terms of using the limited
resources of the office to do what's best for our community.
So let me give you an example in the context of what we're talking about,
in a situation where we have a rape victim who needs to have an abortion and
ends up having abortion and it's after the 15 week ban.
And we'll just just to pause for a moment, the 15 week ban,
by the way that was passed by Florida has been held unconstitutional in the state of
Florida totally.
So totally separate conversation about my willingness or lack thereof to enforce
a law that's unconstitutional, but just to go back to the example of discretion.
In a situation where, we're prosecuting both the rape,
we're prosecuting the rapist and now the governor wants
me to prosecute the rape victim because she had an abortion after it's too late.
Not only should we be exercising discretion there, but
you can't do both as a practical matter.
I mean, once we start prosecuting the victim,
which is just mind blowing to think that anyone would want us to do that,
it jeopardizes our ability to prosecute the rapist.
So, it just comes down to this point.
Who should we be prosecuting?
What makes our community safe?
Should we be going after victims in doctors and women for making these
decisions or should we be focusing limited resources on violent criminals?
Sexual predators, the serious fraudsters, the repeat,
that's who we've gone after in the State Attorney's Office.
That's what my community wants.
That's what we'll keep doing.
>> In fact, on the day that you received news from DeSantis
about your suspension, you had solved a pretty serious
case involving two murder suspects if I'm not mistaken.
And you were planning on a press conference to announce that.
But that didn't really make much news because of what had happened to you.
Can you talk a little bit about what you were able to do in
that case that you solved and and why it's important to
focus resources on those issues as opposed to persecuting victims of rape?
>> Sure, well, our office launched a conviction review unit and
that's a specialized unit within the prosecutor's office that
looks at potentially wrongful convictions.
And three years ago, we started looking at a case where a man had been convicted and
sentenced to, he was sentenced to death initially.
But he spent 37 years in prison and as we discovered for a crime he didn't commit.
So two years ago, we exonerated him with overwhelming evidence of his innocence.
But we got to work after that happened because when you convict the wrong person,
it means that the right perpetrators have never been held accountable.
So, two years of investigation, we were able to not only build a case
against these two guys for the rape and murder of the victim in that case, but
we determined that they had committed another rape and
murder around the same time that had never been charged for 39 years.
So on the day that I was suspended, I was supervising the grand jury
presentation to indict these two men of two separate rapes and
murders that had been outstanding for 39 years.
I made a promise to the victims families that I would be there with them to
share the good news.
And even though the governor removed me from office, I didn't break my promise,
I was able to actually meet with the victim's families to tell them that we had
finally, after four decades charged the people responsible for
killing their loved one.
>> I gotta say, we cover the criminal justice system on the show quite a bit and
it's rare to come across prosecutors who are willing to reopen the case and
consider that there are wrongful convictions and
help exonerate individuals who are wrongfully convicted.
And the reason why I bring that up is because it's hard to come across
prosecutors who are really good at their jobs and
who try to do it in as morally and ethically as possible.
And so, I'm really saddened to hear that you were targeted like this,
but I'm also curious, we hear about the crime wave across the country and
really no state has been spared this crime wave.
Hopefully it's a short one.
But I'm curious what it's like in Florida in regard to the crime wave,
because I want the audience to understand what Ron DeSantis,
is doing is actually making his state way less safe.
Because he's telling the prosecutors in his state no, no, just put all that
other important stuff involving violent crime on the back burner.
I want you to split up your time [LAUGH] focusing on going after people who
are seeking gender affirming care or
women who are seeking abortions past 15 weeks, I mean, it's insane.
>> Yeah, it's a great question and you're making a terrific point and
I'll go one step further.
I mean, we have a policy in our office that's come under scrutiny because for
low level traffic offenses which are often crimes of poverty.
Someone is driving on a suspended license because they couldn't afford to pay off
their speeding ticket in time.
We had a policy where generally speaking, we would not prosecute those cases and
we would try to work with the defendant to get their license back because then they
become a licensed and insured driver.
That is the most common case we had in our office.
And so, we were able to dismiss thousands of charges a year for
those cases where we help people to get their licenses back.
So now, if they want us to prosecute every case to the fullest extent of the law,
the tough on crime.
That works for certain types of offenses, but the rapes and the murders and
the armed burglaries, they represent a small fraction of what we see every day.
Most of the cases we have are misdemeanors and it's much better for public safety to
divert those cases to put those cases into a treatment program or rehabilitation or
some sort of lesser sentence than throwing the book at someone.
So that we can really dedicate our resources to the most serious crimes.
And you asked about the crime wave, crime has gone up in big cities, small cities,
suburban areas, rural areas, Florida is no exception.
In my area of Tampa was no exception.
But it's important to keep in mind that since I've been the state attorney,
Tampa in the Hillsborough County,
the crime rate has gone down 30% over the past five years.
We have the lowest crime rate of any county in the Tampa Bay area,
lowest crime rate of any major county in the state of Florida.
So this has nothing to do with what I've done as state attorney.
This is really about that, I've spoken out against policies,
as you said at the beginning, the governor's favorite culture war issues.
>> Yeah, I mean, it sounds like you got fired for being excellent at your job and
for being a moral person who actually wants to focus on what matters in terms
of your prosecutorial judgment.
And and I really appreciate that.
So let's talk about the future, because you filed this lawsuit,
what do you see happening ahead?
>> Well, we asked for an expedited schedule with the court and
it looks like that that's gonna happen.
I think both sides realize that this should be resolved relatively quickly.
And so, we're hoping that in about a month, which is fast for
federal court that will have a hearing before the judge and we'll get an answer.
And look, you can never guarantee an outcome in court.
But, we know that the law is on our side and we know that democracy is at stake.
This is so much more about than me.
This is about more than one elected official being suspended.
This is a fight for the integrity of our elections in the state.
And, if the governor can suspend an elected official on a whim and
replace that person with whoever he wants,
what's the point of having elections and what's left of our democracy?
>> And who did he replace you with because remember, I mean, you were elected into
the position that you are serving the people elected you into that position.
Whereas now, since, you've been suspended,
the governor gets to appoint your replacement.
Talk about who that replacement was.
>> The governor appointed someone who had been a judge for
a short period of time in the county.
Who, I think fits the governor's profile for
who would want as a prosecutor, federalist society, conservative.
And look, this isn't really about her, it, but it is about the fact that In my
2020 election, I received 370,000 votes in Hillsborough County.
That's 140,000 more votes than the governor received in Hillsborough County
in his last election.
So, someone who got way fewer votes than I did, is taking me out of office and
putting someone into office who has never received one vote for
any position in her entire life.
That's not how democracy works, even when I'm talking with my elementary school
age daughter about this, she's really confused.
She's like, but you on the election, isn't that democracy?
Yeah, that's democracy.
At least it's supposed to be.
>> Yeah, I'm getting the sense that kids are starting to learn younger and
younger, that our systems aren't all they're cracked up to be [LAUGH].
Some of the whitewashing that we get in our history lessons can easily be
erased through just living in reality a little bit.
And I hate that your daughter gets to experience that, so early on in her life.
But I'm really, really proud of what you did here because you're speaking truth
to power and I think you're using the best judgment in wanting to focus resources and
attention on crimes that actually victimize people.
And I hope that you win, we need more prosecutors like you,
who actually think about these things thoroughly.
And you don't want to cause more pain and suffering to people, so more power to you.
And I hope you come back on to give us an update.
Stay strong.
Thanks so much for having me.
Thank You.
Have a good one.