HE IS! But now to objective things of importance, aside from that informed opinion.
In a Nov. 29 report NY Times defines the situation -
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Last December, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida asked two high-level aides at a meeting in his office if any elected state prosecutors were “not enforcing the law.”
It was a brief and unprompted inquiry, one of the aides said later in a deposition. But it soon led to the Republican governor zeroing in on Tampa’s top prosecutor, Andrew H. Warren, a Democrat with a progressive policy bent. In August, flanked by law enforcement officers, Mr. DeSantis made the startling announcement that he was suspending Mr. Warren from office, chiefly for pledging that he would not prosecute those who seek or provide abortions.
Whether the suspension violated Mr. Warren’s free speech rights and represented an overreach of the governor’s executive authority are now questions before a federal judge in a trial that began on Tuesday in Tallahassee, the state capital. Mr. Warren had sued Mr. DeSantis, seeking to be reinstated.
“It’s been 117 days since the governor suspended democracy,” Mr. Warren said outside the federal courthouse in downtown Tallahassee before the trial got underway. “A trial is the search for the truth, and, in this building, the truth matters.”
[...] In the lead-up to the Nov. 8 election, Mr. DeSantis frequently told cheering crowds how he had suspended Mr. Warren for what he called incompetence and neglect of duty. Months earlier, Mr. DeSantis had enacted a ban on abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy.
Actually, the Florida legislature passed such a statute, it was not DeSantis by executive order. NYT continuing -
Mr. DeSantis’s team argued that Mr. Warren had issued “blanket” policies against prosecuting minor crimes, as well as crimes involving abortions and gender-affirming care. Mr. Warren, who was the first witness to take the stand, said his policies were not blanket refusals but rather written to give prosecutors discretion. He characterized his ouster as political retaliation over his public disagreements with the governor.
Mr. Warren was one of 90 elected prosecutors across the country who in June signed a statement against criminalizing abortion that was put out by Fair and Just Prosecution, a group of elected prosecutors who espouse policies like reducing the use of fines, fees and bail and expanding alternatives to incarceration. He had also signed an earlier pledge not to criminalize transgender people and gender-affirming health care, which the group also disseminated.
Mr. DeSantis, who has repeatedly tested the boundaries of his executive authority, has been much more aggressive than his predecessors in suspending elected officials, who in prior administrations were most often removed from office when they had been criminally charged with wrongdoing. Under Florida law, a governor can suspend state officials for wrongdoing that includes neglect of duty, incompetence, malfeasance, drunkenness or commission of a felony.
The fast-tracked bench trial before Judge Robert L. Hinkle of the U.S. District Court in Tallahassee is expected to last from three to five days. The judge ruled last week that Mr. DeSantis, the defendant in the case, could not be called as a witness for Mr. Warren’s case in chief.
Mr. Warren’s lawyers could try to call Mr. DeSantis as a rebuttal witness, but Judge Hinkle, who was appointed to the federal bench by President Bill Clinton, indicated last week that he would probably not grant such a request.
The losing side in the case is expected to appeal.
Internal texts, emails and other records obtained by Mr. Warren’s defense lawyers ahead of the trial, as well as depositions of some of Mr. DeSantis’s top aides, showed how the administration had quietly built its case for suspending Mr. Warren for months — and had considered how removing him from office would play in the public eye.
Suspending Mr. Warren “is likely to increase Warren’s profile,” read a chart listing “drawbacks” for the various actions the governor could take. Under “benefits,” the chart read: “A leftist prosecutor is removed from a position of power.”
[...] Mr. Warren, who was in his second term as the chief prosecutor for the 13th Judicial Circuit, testified on Tuesday that he had had no idea he was going to be removed from office.
He was overseeing a grand jury proceeding in Hillsborough County, where Tampa is located, on Aug. 4 when he received an email informing him of his suspension. Before reviewing the details, he went back to his office. A few minutes later, Larry Keefe, the governor’s public safety czar, and two sheriff’s deputies knocked on his door.
Mr. Warren said he had asked Mr. Keefe for a chance to review the governor’s order.
“You cannot have a chance to review,” Mr. Warren said Mr. Keefe had told him. “You need to leave your office immediately.”
Mr. Keefe was one of the aides in Mr. DeSantis’s office last December when the governor inquired about looking into the actions of elected state attorneys. The other was James Uthmeier, the governor’s chief of staff.
A day before the suspension, on Aug. 3, Mr. DeSantis gave his general counsel, Ryan Newman, handwritten edits to the proposed executive order suspending Mr. Warren, court records show. The governor had staff members add language describing abortion as the “dismemberment” of an “unborn child.” He also asked that the order list the other reasons for Mr. Warren’s suspension “before abortion.”
But Ray Treadwell, the governor’s chief deputy general counsel, said in a deposition that it had been Mr. Warren’s signing of the pledge not to prosecute people who obtain or provide abortions that had brought about his suspension.
“I will say emphatically that it was the abortion statement that drove our recommendation across the goal line,” Mr.Tredwell said.
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Suspended prosecutor Andrew Warren took his battle against Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to a federal court on Tuesday in the first day of a trial that’s exposing the machinations in how the governor’s office operates.
DeSantis suspended the Hillsborough County state attorney in August over a handful of moves the Democratic elected official made, including signing a pledge in June that he would not enforce the state’s abortion laws. Florida recently enacted a ban on abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy without exceptions for rape or incest.
Warren contends that DeSantis’ move to suspend him in early August violated his First Amendment rights, and in the trial’s opening day he testified for more than three hours, including recounting the day he was suspended. On that day, Warren said he was met at his office by Larry Keefe, the governor’s public safety czar, who was accompanied by sheriff’s deputies and a demand that he leave immediately.
Keefe, who took the stand later in the day, however, provided some of the most illuminating testimony, saying he was the “primary driver” in getting Warren’s suspended. His inquiry started in the wake of DeSantis asking during a December 2021 meeting whether there were any Florida prosecutors not enforcing the law.
Keefe contended during his testimony that Warren was “crossing the line” for signing the statements on abortion — and another one saying he would not prosecute anyone for providing gender affirming care to transgender patients even though the state does not have any criminal laws dealing with that. Florida approved a rule banning gender-affirming treatment for minors several months after Warren was suspended.
“This wasn’t a one-off,” said Keefe, a former U.S. attorney who also directed the DeSantis administration’s contentious relocation of migrants from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard. He said this statements regarding Warren were part of a “very problematic” trend from the ousted prosecutor. “I absolutely believed he needed to be suspended.”
But Keefe acknowledged several times on the stand that he never called Warren directly or communicated with anyone in Warren’s office to ask about the prosecutor’s statements. Warren and two top officials still working in the state attorney’s office said there wasn’t a blanket policy against prosecuting abortion or gender-affirming cases and they have not handled any such prosecutions. Warren’s team even noted a written policy that tells prosecutors to evaluate individual cases.
Keefe, who said he conducted a review of Warren’s actions but not an actual “investigation,” brushed aside the written policies. Instead, he contended that Warren was a “state attorney whose approach to his job was harmful” and that he was antagonistic to law enforcement, an opinion based on conversations he held with several people, including the current Hillsborough sheriff and the former Tampa police chief.
Warren had adopted policies that recommend against the prosecution of low level crimes such as trespassing and disorderly intoxication or moving ahead with charges that stem from initial police encounters where a pedestrian or bicycle rider is stopped for a non-criminal violation.
Keefe went so far as to suggest that there were problems with “violent” and “rampant crime” in Tampa and that keeping Warren on the job would lead to “chaos.”
Florida’s Constitution gives the governor the power to suspend elected officials for various reasons, including neglect of duty and malfeasance or commission of a felony. Previous governors have primarily suspended local officials who have been arrested, but DeSantis has embraced a wider use of the suspension powers. He first used it to remove Scott Israel, the Broward County sheriff, over how his office responded to the Parkland shooting. Under the Constitution, a suspended official can ask to be reinstated by the Florida Senate.
Warren, however, opted to fight the governor in federal court, a move that caught DeSantis’ own legal team off guard, according to depositions that have been filed ahead of the lead up of the trial. Most of Warren’s time on the stand included going over the operations of his office — as well as his stance on abortion and gender-affirming care and why he chose to sign onto statements that were put out by an advocacy group called Fair and Just Prosecution. The organization bills itself as a group that brings together local prosecutors promoting changes to the criminal justice system, but it has come under fire from conservatives because it is linked to a group that receives funding from billionaire donor George Soros.
Warren defended the abortion statement by saying he was more concerned about all-out bans on abortion and said he backed the one on gender-affirming care as saying he was opposed to discrimination against trans youth.
Moments before he entered the federal courthouse Tuesday morning, Warren told reporters that “there’s so much more at stake than my job. We’re not just fighting for me to do the job that I was elected to do. We are fighting for the rights of voters across Florida to have the elected officials of their choice. We’re fighting for free speech, the integrity of our elections and the very values of our democracy.”
[...] The trial is expected to last at least two more days. Warren wants U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle to restore to his job and place a permanent injunction against DeSantis’ executive order that suspended him.
Beyond that, readers can further web search. Crabgrass's websearch =
andrew warren v. ron desantis pretrial briefing
yielded this amicus brief online.
Because most readers might not follow the link, the brief is briefly quoted, from its start -
INTEREST AND IDENTITY OF AMICI CURIAE
Amici are 115 legal scholars whose scholarship, teaching, and professional service focus on legal ethics, professional responsibility, and/or criminal procedure. Collectively, amici have authored hundreds of articles and other writings, including casebooks, on these subjects. Their academic work addresses the professional norms and expectations governing prosecutors, including those relating to prosecutorial discretion and accountability, as well as the mechanisms by which prosecutors are regulated to ensure accountability while preserving prosecutorial independence. Some of the amici have also participated in developing or revising the American Bar Association Criminal Justice Standards, Prosecution Function, which have guided prosecutorial discretion and standards of conduct for more than fifty years.
Drawing on their expertise, amici, who join in their independent capacity and are listed in Appendix A to the Brief, offer a perspective which is broader than the parties regarding the extent to which the conduct in this case comports with relevant professional standards and democratic mechanisms.
Amici submit State Attorney Warren’s transparent statements of policy and prosecutorial priorities are consistent with professional standards of conduct. Amici further submit that suspending State Attorney Warren for establishing priorities and expressing views threatens the very principles prosecutors vow to uphold, including prosecutorial independence.
The brief notes three proffered bases in the DeSantis executive order "suspending" Warren:
(1) Warren’s signature on the Gender Statement “prove[s] that Warren thinks he has authority to defy the Florida Legislature and nullify in his jurisdiction criminal laws with which he disagrees” even though the Florida Legislature has not enacted
any criminal laws concerning transgender people or gender-affirming healthcare, see EO at 3, ECF No. 1-1;
(2) the Presumptive Non-Prosecution Policies “are not a proper exercise of prosecutorial discretion” and “have the effect of usurping the province of the Florida Legislature to define criminal conduct …” see EO at 4, ECF No. 1-1; and
(3) by signing the Abortion Statement, Warren has “declared intent” not to prosecute abortion crimes and thus “there is no reason to believe that Warren will faithfully enforce the abortion laws of this State and properly exercise his prosecutorial discretion on a ‘case-specific’ and ‘individualized’ basis.”
See EO at 7, ECF No. 1-1.
Then the brief notes
The Executive Order does not, however, point to any specific case State Attorney Warren declined to charge; nor does it seriously contend State Attorney Warren issued a blanket, categorical refusal to charge a particular kind of case. On these grounds, Governor DeSantis summarily suspended State Attorney Warren indefinitely from his elected Office and appointed a new State Attorney of his choosing.
Preempting voter choice two ways, the elected man ousted, no vote on replacement. DeSantis is . . .
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I already said it.
The amicus brief states facts and argument, giving the best background to why Warren is suing to undo the executive order which he contests as overreaching and in breach of his rights. In derogation of well established norms of prosecutorial discretion. And an affront to voter rights.
Warren is supported by outside help. The amici and others.
____________UPDATE____________
DeSantis is as much an authoritarian bully as Trump. With less roguish charm.
Not as bright. Over disciplined. Mediocre.
More thug than rogue.
 |
| Big Boss Ron and his thuggish looking toadies |
Measure the man by that stunt he pulled with his fuck-the-felon voter putsch, while privately permissively toward his golf-cart elderly villagers who voted in two states while knowing it was wrong but only getting a wrist slap pretrial diversion as "punishment." BOTTOM LINE: Ron DeSantis can't tell election integrity from a hole in the ground.The lectern should be saying "fuck-the-felons and fuck every voter who voted for the initiative to restore former felon rights. I'm Big Boss Ron!"
Presidential? Or better fit to be Trump's Mar-a-Lago caddie or butler?
____________FURTHER UPDATE____________
What DeSantis did was serious and mean voter intimidation. And he was boastful about it.
It is as easy to vent against DeSantis as it is against Ted Cruz.
They are similar. To understand what galls me the most, I imagine the two of them in a canoe, each paddling in the opposite direction because each wants things his way or no way, adamant, no matter what might make sense. Equal on the charm scale, neither unpinning the needle from zero. Bluster city.
That said, it appears interesting that Judge Robert L. Hinkle, the judge reported as presiding in the Warren v DeSantis trial, had previously in May 2020 held the Florida statute under which DeSantis had the various felon persons publicly arrested and shamed, an impermissible poll tax.
That was widely reported.
So, Warren v. Desantis gets a trial judge capable of seeing through a smoke screen.
Not a good sign for DeSantis playing heavyweight intimidator. Against the coarsely treated felons. Strike one. Against the self-motivated prosecutor setting office goals and policy under budget and as a dimension of prosecutorial discretion? Strike two?
We shall see.
Biggest surprise? Like Cruz, DeSantis got reelected.
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Coverage of Wednesday's day two of the trial -
During day two of the trial, we heard stunning testimony from DeSantis’ top advisors
First up was the governor’s chief safety czar – Larry Keefe – who oversaw the suspension and had numerous conversations with state attorneys and sheriffs across Florida, asking them if they knew of any state attorneys that weren’t enforcing the law.
Judge Hinkle zeroed in on if the conversations – and ultimately the suspension – were political.
The judge asked Keefe if any of the officials contacted were Democrats. Keefe paused before telling the court he couldn’t give specific examples.
Next to the stand was an unpaid intern for the governor who wrote up the controversial memo weighing the benefits and drawbacks of suspending Warren.
Communications director in the executive office of the governor, Taryn Fenske testified the suspension wasn’t politically motivated and would have happened even if Warren was a Republican.
The trial will continue on Thursday.
Wasn't political? Get real. It was over abortion politics, Keefe already admitted that, day one.
Realistically, would a Republican prosecutor, in Florida, anywhere there, have signed pledges originating from the National Advocacy Group Fair and Just Prosecution - pledges against abortion restrictions and transgender bias? No way!
That communications director is a joke of a human, saying it was not political. She did mean it was not overtly partisan, but the poll tax - felon intimidation was not overtly partisan either, just poor predominantly ill-informed black folks rounded up, shamed. That felon arrest ploy, stinking of voter intimidation politics.
And the judge on top of the trial, interjecting his own clearly relevant question. It looks dark for DeSantis' chance to prevail. Again, however, we have to wait.
___________FURTHER UPDATE__________
RESULT OF FURTHER WEB SEARCH
The 11th Circuit (ultimately) reversed the District Court's determination that a poll tax was at issue; Jones v. Governor of Florida, 975 F. 3d 1016 (1th Cir. 2020) rev'g, Id. 950 F. 3d 795 (11th Cir. 2020). The circuit court en banc reversed a circuit court per curium panel; read both, decide in your mind what is legitimate and what is bogus.
Wrong ultimate resolution in the opinion of many, but the last word from the federal courts is DeSantis prevailed, judicially. In the minds of level-headed citizens, opinions differ. DeSantis had no real cause to do this except to intimidate and to hence bias voting in Florida. Or that is the opinion Crabgrass holds; and with that whole exercise in mind, it is more proof DeSantis is an asshole.
Opinions can differ.
The entire set of "Jones" decisions can be read here.
DeSantis precipitates pissing matches, Jones and now Warren. The final viewpoint Crabgrass cares to share, Andrew Warren now has a recognized name and stature statewide and nationwide, and should run next cycle for Governor of Florida. It might be a vacant seat if the Republican party nominates DeSantis for Pres. or VP; otherwise Warren will have a shot at ousting DeSantis unless Florida has a two-term Guv limit in place. There would be a form of justice if Warren were to run and win.
Florida is a swamp. Warren is one of the good people there. The 11th Circuit is suspect of its own swamphood. End of Jones story.
The Warren story is still quite preliminary, being only now at trial.
____________FURTHER UPDATE___________
As the trial wrapped up Thursday evening, Judge Hinkle told the lawyers he would begin reviewing the case in two weeks, the earliest his schedule would allow.
Any news later will be separately posted, not added here as an UPDATE.