December 12, 2022
Bragging about your unwillingness to uphold pro-life laws doesn’t fly in the DeSantis Administration, and we’re giving major kudos to the Florida Governor who stuck to his guns and fired his state prosecutor who went rogue on his own political agenda.
In case you missed it, earlier this fall, Governor DeSantis suspended Andrew Warren who, despite his election in 2016 as a prosecutor for the state, said he “would not pursue criminal charges against seekers or providers of abortion or gender transition treatments” as reported by the Associated Press.
While Florida doesn’t have any laws regarding transgender treatments, it does have a 15-week abortion limit which Warren pledged to not uphold. According to the New York Post, Warren was selectively prosecuting cases as Hillsborough County Sheriff Chad Chronister referenced a scenario in which “Warren’s office declined to charge an alleged gang member who shot one person and then fired into a home filled with women and children.”
Sheriff Chronister also accused Warren of acting as a “supreme authority” to which DeSantis added, “When you’re saying you’re not going to enforce certain laws that you don’t like, that’s neglect of duty. That, quite frankly, is incompetence as defined in Florida law.”
In August, the Governor responded to the action of his prosecutor by saying:
“We are not going to allow the pathogen that’s been around the country of ignoring the law, we are not going to allow that to get a foothold here in the state of Florida. We are going to make sure our laws are enforced, and no individual prosecutor puts himself above the law.”
That is precisely what DeSantis did as he dismissed Warren, but not without Warren taking him to court to fight for a hopeful reinstation. The arguments in the trial recently ended, and there is now a wait period to see what happens next in the case.
The question stands unanswered, however: if a Governor can’t fire a prosecutor who ignores the rule of law, where is the line drawn that prevents prosecutors from acting politically? Wouldn’t it then be in the interest of any prosecutor in the nation to decide what laws they will or will not obey?
In a Post-Roe America, these questions are greatly important. As more states pass their own life-saving laws, you could see pro-abortion prosecutors nationwide act as Warren and legislate from the bench.
What’s stopping prosecutors from blocking life-saving laws in states like Texas and Oklahoma where great strides of progress to protect the preborn have been made?
Check back into the SFLAction blog for an update when the case is decided; our hope is that Governors will be able to act in accordance with the law when it comes to rouge prosecutors.
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