Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is seeking to end a legal challenge regarding his controversial decision last year to suspend Orlando-area State Attorney Monique Worrell. On Friday, state lawyers submitted a 25-page motion requesting a federal judge to dismiss a lawsuit filed by two residents and the group Florida Rising Together. The lawsuit claims that DeSantis violated voters’ due process and First Amendment rights with the suspension.
The motion outlines several arguments, including that the plaintiffs lack legal standing and that DeSantis did not breach federal constitutional rights. “Obviously, it does not offend the U.S. Constitution for states to authorize suspending and removing state elected officials for neglect of duty and other misconduct or incapacity,” the motion stated.
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DeSantis’ legal team further argued that for Worrell’s suspension to infringe on the plaintiff’s substantive due process rights, they would need to prove a fundamental right to keep their elected candidate in office. “Plaintiffs still cannot cite a single case (a legal precedent) for this proposition,” the motion added.
Plaintiffs David Caicedo and Rajib Chowdhury, along with Florida Rising Together, filed a revised version of their lawsuit on June 28 in Orlando after U.S. District Judge Julie Sneed dismissed an earlier version in May. They argue that DeSantis’ suspension of Worrell “disenfranchised” voters. The revised lawsuit contends that Worrell fulfilled her campaign promises to reform the criminal justice system, adhering to her professional and ethical obligations and exercising her prosecutorial discretion.
In August, Governor DeSantis issued an executive order suspending Worrell, a Democrat elected in 2020 to the 9th Judicial Circuit, covering Orange and Osceola counties. The order alleged that Worrell’s policies discouraged assistant state attorneys from seeking minimum mandatory sentences for gun crimes and drug-trafficking offenses.
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The revised lawsuit aims to have DeSantis’ executive order declared unconstitutional. “Governor DeSantis abrogated plaintiffs’ associational and expressional First Amendment rights when he abused the suspension authority accorded to him under Florida law,” the lawsuit claims.
The Florida Supreme Court upheld Worrell’s suspension in a separate case decided on June 6. Worrell is running for state attorney again in the November election despite the ongoing legal battle. One of her competitors is Andrew Bain, a former Orange County judge appointed by DeSantis to replace her, running without party affiliation.
If the lawsuit is not dismissed, it is unlikely that the legal issues will be resolved before the election. According to the court docket, Judge Sneed has scheduled a trial to start in May 2025.
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