DeSantis said Warren, a Democrat and rising star in progressive law enforcement circles, had put himself “above the law” by promising not to enforce laws that restrict abortion or children’s ability to seek certain treatments for distress due to gender. DeSantis invoked a suspension clause in the Florida Constitution meaning Warren was effectively fired. Let’s take a closer look at Warren’s record, examining where it came from and how we arrived at Thursday’s decision.

  1. Warren had a major turnaround in 2016. Andrew Warren was a relatively anonymous Democratic attorney until election night in 2016, when he unseated Republican incumbent Mark Ober in the Hillsborough County district attorney race. At the time, the Times called Warren’s victory “a stunning election night turnaround.” Warren, a former federal prosecutor, has waged an aggressive campaign attacking his opponent for alleged insensitivity and insensitivity to crime victims. (At the time, Ober said both characterizations were misleading.) Warren also pledged to rehabilitate those convicted of crimes and enact policies that would prevent criminals from becoming repeat offenders.
  2. His office helped exonerate a wrongfully convicted man imprisoned for nearly four decades. In 2018, Warren established a conviction review unit in the Hillsborough district attorney’s office. Shortly thereafter, evidence presented to the unit by the Innocence Project led a judge to throw out the conviction of Robert DuBoise, a man who had been wrongfully imprisoned for 37 years. DuBoise was convicted in the 1980s of murdering Barbara Grams. The unit was one of Warren’s many progressive initiatives. He has rarely sought the death penalty in capital murder cases. And he had directed his office away from charging people for driving with a suspended license if the suspension was due to a financial obligation, such as an unpaid speeding ticket.
  3. Warren has been a thorn in the side of conservatives. Perhaps the high point of Warren’s tenure as attorney general came during the worst of the coronavirus pandemic. In April 2020, the prosecutor supported the arrest of a megachurch pastor who had conducted church services in person. DeSantis then signed an executive order allowing the personal services to continue.

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Want more of our free, weekly newsletters in your inbox? Let’s start. Explore all your options In response, Warren called DeSantis’ motion “weak” and “spineless.” Charges against the pastor were later dropped. Warren also criticized some of DeSantis’ legislative priorities. He said HB 1 of 2021, the so-called “anti-riot” bill, amounted to “criminalizing peaceful demonstrations.” The anti-protest bills (HB1/SB484) do not help prosecutors and directly undermine the 1st Am.’s freedoms of speech and assembly by criminalizing peaceful protests by the many based on the illegal behavior of the few. This morning I shared my thoughts with the Legislature.https://t.co/ZYN6MCFItK — Andrew Warren (@AndrewWarrenFL) March 10, 2021 He refused to prosecute 67 people arrested during the summer 2020 protests over police brutality, angering some conservatives. And after the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn the abortion precedent set by Roe v. Wade, Warren said he would not pursue charges against abortion patients. In a tweet, he opined that the Florida Constitution has a clause protecting the right to privacy. That proclamation was one of DeSantis’ justifications for suspending the DA. 4. Warren has been accused of being funded by out-of-state liberal billionaires. On Thursday, in response to a question about whether it was appropriate to remove an elected official, DeSantis referred to Warren’s campaign of support from wealthy progressives hoping to overhaul the criminal justice system. “We can go back and look at some of these elections and all the money that’s coming in from people who don’t live in Florida and they’re really trying to push an agenda for the people of Florida,” DeSantis said. (The governor has received tens of millions of dollars in campaign contributions from out-of-state billionaires.) Rumors of support for Warren from financiers such as George Soros date back to 2016. According to a Warren the Times profile published in 2020, Soros likely helped Warren’s campaign. “We understand that he gave money to the state (Democratic) party,” Warren said at the time. “And the state party money … went to support different candidates. And I have very little insight into the amount of money he gave, who it went to, etc.” 5. Tampa has seen more murders in recent years. Tampa’s violent crime rate has skyrocketed in recent years, with the city in 2021 recording the most murders it has seen since 1994, according to statistics from the Tampa Police Department compiled by the Times editorial board. Although such crimes occur across the state and across the country, Tampa has seen somewhat more murders than most cities in Florida, the editorial board said in April.