A funny thing happened to Ron DeSantis on his way to the Iowa caucuses. A three-judge federal appellate panel ruled that the Republican governor fired a twiceelected Democratic prosecutor for political gain, violating his constitutional rights.

The prosecutor, Andrew Warren, sued and federal judge Robert L. Hinkle agreed that DeSantis did violate his freedom of speech protection but that he did not have the power to order his reinstatement. The Florida Supreme Court, dominated by DeSantis appointees, refused to take the case, asserting that the appeal was filed too late. On January 10, an 11th Circuit Court of Appeals panel, in a 59-page opinion, overruled Hinkle and sent the case back to him. Significantly, the panel comprised two Republican-appointees — Anne Conway, appointed by President George H.W. Bush, Kevin Newsom, appointed by President Donald Trump – along with Jilly Pryor, appointed by Democrat President Barack Obama.

DeSantis, who replaced Warren with a Republican, Suzy Lopez, often boasted that he “got rid” of Warren – and another prosecutor — for not doing their jobs and that he acted in the interest of law and order. The appellate panel rejected that claim.

The judges noted that voters elected Warren and DeSantis did not appoint him. “If alignment with DeSantis’s political preferences were an appropriate requirement to perform the state attorney’s duties, there would be little point in local elections open to candidates across the political spectrum,” the judges stated. “The First Amendment prevents DeSantis from identifying a reform prosecutor and then suspending him to garner political benefit.” They said the governor “must prove that unprotected activity, such as Warren’s actual performance or his policies, motivated him to suspend Warren.”

Newsom wrote in his concurring opinion: “The First Amendment is an inconvenient thing. It protects expression that some find wrongheaded, or offensive, or even ridiculous. But for the same reason that the government can’t muzzle socalled ‘conservative’ speech under the guise of preventing on-campus ‘harassment,’ the state can’t exercise its coercive power to censor socalled ‘woke’ speech with which it disagrees. What’s good for mine is (whether I like it or not) good for thine.”

Warren was elected Hillsborough County state attorney with more than 50 percent of the vote. In August 2022, DeSantis indefinitely suspended him, evidently because Warren had signed a pledge, along with some 80 other prosecutors nationwide, not to go after people seeking abortions or transgender health care. DeSantis stated at a press conference that Warren “has put himself publicly above the law” and that “the role of the state attorney is to apply the law and enforce the law, not pick and choose which laws you like and which laws you do not like.”

However, months before suspending Warren, the governor “had ordered his staff to find progressive prosecutors who were letting criminals walk free,” The New York Times reported. “Under oath, his aides later acknowledged that they had deliberately avoided investigating Mr. Warren too closely so that they would not tip him off and prompt him to reverse his policies, thwarting the goal of making an example of him.”

That surreptitious investigation produced no damning information but the governor and his lawyers dismissed or ignored that finding. Only after DeSantis fired Warren did his aides seek records from his office “that might help justify Mr. DeSantis’s action,” The Times reported.

The dismissal of Warren, a European American, was a blow to the African American community, Tampa resident Joyce Jackson wrote in the

Tampa Bay Times. Jackson, a member of the Color of Change national civil rights organization, accused DeSantis of firing Warren “for political reasons.” He had “stood up for Black communities in Hillsborough County as state attorney,” Jackson wrote. Warren had also been “a champion for people charged with non-violent misdemeanors and oversaw a 69 percent reduction in the number of cases where children are tried as adults. Warren put a halt to prosecution of minor bike citations, as well, after Tampa police had written thousands of tickets for ‘biking while Black.’”

Then, last August, DeSantis suspended Monique Worrell, the elected African American state attorney of Orange-Osceola, accusing her of pursuing a “political agenda.” In his executive order, DeSantis said that Worrell allowed “violent offenders, drug traffickers, serious juvenile offenders and pedophiles to evade incarceration,” the Tampa Bay Times reported.

The governor claimed Worrell avoided minimum mandatory sentences, failed to seek enhanced penalties and inappropriately asked for findings of guilt to be withheld. But he really focused on her, the Daily Beast reported, because she had been “about to crack down on a wide-ranging cover-up by deputies who, she says, were faking documents to hide lethal and abusive behavior.”

Worrell said that all 20 or so law enforcement agencies in Central Florida had been “working against me because I was prosecuting their cops, the ones who used to do things and get away with them.” The Daily Beast said two people speaking on condition of anonymity supported Worrel’s assertion.

Worrel has sued DeSantis over her firing.

The dismissals of the two prosecutors, the Tampa Bay Times reported, “have this in common: Both Warren and Worrell are Democrats who say their ouster is about a governor running for the Republican presidential nomination and out to score political points. … But there’s also a big difference in the two suspensions: DeSantis’ justification shifted from hot-button issues to meat-and-potatoes law and order — at a time when crime has become a key focus of his presidential campaign.”

Persecution of prosecutors deemed “progressive” is not confined to Florida. Mark A. Gonzalez, district attorney of Nueces County, Texas, was hounded out of office de- spite also being elected twice. He was “one of the first prosecutors to encourage police to ticket people rather than arrest them for a range of minor offenses. He made his office friendlier to defense lawyers,” The New York Times reported. Conservatives filed a civil lawsuit to oust Gonsalves, who resigned and is now a U.S. Senate candidate. "I refuse to play this rigged Republican game,” he wrote in his letter of resignation.

Also, Republican lawmakers are trying to impeach Larry Krasner while serving a second term as Philadelphia’s top prosecutor. Krasner, among the first to describe himself as a “progressive prosecutor.” He has sued to block efforts to weaken his authority. In St. Louis, Kim Gardner quit after legislators moved to empower the governor to replace her with a special prosecutor.

Further, more than two dozen bills were introduced in 16 states, most of them run by Republicans, to limit prosecutors’ power, The New York Times said, citing an analysis by nonprofit groups opposed to the move. Several of those bills have become law, including in Tennessee, Georgia and Texas.

But the campaign involves not only Republicans. A coalition of San Francisco voters, including independents and moderate Democrats and Republicans, voted last year to recall the district attorney, Chesa Boudin, midway through his first term, The Times reported. Boudin had eliminated cash bail and pledged to reduce incarceration but “found himself under mounting criticism over persistent property crime and open drug use in the city.”

Meanwhile, Trump, who is seeking re-election, has said that, if he wins, “On day one of my new administration, I will direct the [U.S. Department of Justice] to investigate every radical district attorney and attorney general in America for their illegal, racist … enforcement of the law.” He would also launch “sweeping civil rights investigations” of local district attorneys’ offices, mostly in Democratic cities, USA Today reported.

So, at a time when the nation, according to the Associated Press, “is gripped by intense debates regarding justice, race and democracy,” African American prosecutors “have emerged as central figures litigating those issues, highlighting the achievements and limits of Black communal efforts to reform the justice system.”

They deserve the nation’s gratitude, not the wrath of politicians with selfserving objectives.