What voters wanted

Florida’s governmental integrity and the rights of its voters stand on a precipice. State Attorney Monique Worrell’s fight to regain control of her office after being suspended in August by Gov. Ron DeSantis is just one symptom of this. But it’s a big one.

Wednesday’s oral arguments before the Florida Supreme Court, as Worrell fought to reverse the governor’s coup, underscored that. The attorney for DeSantis argued that the court had no power to consider the facts alleged in his brief.

Will the court agree, after the Orlando Sentinel did the exhaustive research that left one of DeSantis’ biggest allegations against Worrell in ruins? Cristóbal Reyes’ story on today’s front page undermines a claim that Worrell is to blame for failed drug trafficking cases in Osceola County. And it raises an even bigger question: Why didn’t the governor’s office check its facts before taking the grave step of removing her from office?

And why did Osceola Sheriff Marcos López act as such an enthusiastic participant in Worrell’s downfall, when he knew (or should have known) the truth?

That’s a question Osceola County voters should demand that López answer, and one we’ll need to take a deeper look at in a subsequent editorial.

For now, we’re going to take a good look at why so many experts across the nation are already deeply concerned about this case.

Some background is in order.

“Monique Worrell’s win in Orlando part of national wave of progressive prosecutors,” read the headline in the Orlando Sentinel the day after the November 2020 election, with Worrell claiming two-thirds of all votes cast.

On the campaign trail, Worrell — who was replacing equally progressive Aramis Ayala, who was not seeking re-election — was clear on what she stood for. She backed sweeping reforms of a criminal justice system that nearly everyone agrees is broken. That included long and often pointless prison terms for nonviolent offenders; crime prevention through better mental health and substance abuse services and an attempt to break the school-to-prison pipeline that is warping the lives of young offenders.

And she made the case that — once reform was well and truly underway — it would free up time and money to focus on the truly violent predators among us.

It was a campaign based on hope that there was a better way, one local voters eagerly embraced, using changes that were well within Worrell’s legal authority under the ancient concept of prosecutorial discretion and black-letter Florida law.

She never got the chance to see it through.

DeSantis’ motive: Fun and profit

DeSantis started openly eyeing her as a target for removal as early as 2021, right after he ripped Warren’s office away from him in a move that a federal judge said was probably illegal — but that the state Supreme Court rebuffed. In frequent, coy references to Worrell, the governor seemed to regard his pursuit of her ruin as a gleeful game rather than a serious affront to local voters.

As he laid the groundwork, DeSantis left a considerable trail of circumstantial evidence that his operatives intentionally sought to sow discord between Worrell and local law-enforcement agencies. That further stymied progress on her initiatives.

Yet the governor could not gin up a legally defensible argument to remove Worrell. His official order was full of statistics without context, some of which blamed Worrell for decisions made before she took office and others that lacked comparison to other judicial circuits in Florida. Much of it was anecdotal, laying the blame at Worrell’s feet for cases that she claims, at times, were flawed by problematic decisions made by law enforcement.

And now we know that Worrell’s claims were, at least in part, warranted. After reviewing reams of documents, including sworn affidavits, police reports, laboratory results and other documents, Reyes was able to document that many of the “failures” DeSantis cited were the result of inadequate evidence, missed deadlines and other problems that derailed prosecutors’ ability to win convictions.

Cause for alarm

That throws the case before the Supreme Court into harsh light. Even before Wednesday’s arguments, the justices had (presumably) read a brief filed by 121 current and retired law enforcement officials, prosecutors and judges — including several former Florida Supreme Court justices, sitting prosecutors in the nation’s largest cities (and some of its smallest). They also knew that the nation’s two largest prosecutors’ associations — the National Association of District Attorneys and the Association of Prosecuting Attorneys — have issued statements in her defense.

The high court has also seen ample evidence that the governor’s strike against Worrell (and other elected officials, including former State Attorney Andrew Warren in Hillsborough County) was meant to further his own ambitions. DeSantis took every opportunity to brandish the heads of “two Democrat prosecutors” on campaign stops and debate stages, to roars of approval from primary voters who saw him as a slightly less scandalous alternative to Donald Trump.

Imagine that level of pettiness, backed by the breathtaking power of the Oval Office.

And then look beyond that.

This is a fight that implicates the integrity of Florida’s criminal justice system. This is a fight that — if lost — could spur copycat actions in jurisdictions across the nation. This is a fight over whose voice actually matters: One vengeful and ambitious man, or the will of countless voters — not just the nearly half-million souls in Orange and Osceola counties who cast their ballots for Worrell, but of voters across the nation who see major problems in their government and deserve the right to demand changes.

This is a fight over whether the truth, and the law, matter.

Against this backdrop, we can only characterize the questions asked by the justices at Wednesday’s oral arguments as yet another cause for alarm. Several of them seemed to have adapted DeSantis’ arguments wholesale. But we also understand that it can be a mistake to predict an appellate court’s final opinion, based on oral arguments.

If facts matter, Worrell should prevail. DeSantis has never alleged any legally defensible grounds to remove her from office. And at least some of the allegations he hurled at her in the order of dismissal have already come unraveled.

If voters’ wishes matter, Worrell should prevail. They elected her to reform criminal justice, and that’s what she was doing.

That leaves one question for justices to answer: Where do their loyalties lie? Bolstering the waning ambitions of one man? Or supporting the rule of law, the integrity of Florida’s justice system, the will of the voters and the fundamental concept that the truth matters?

If justice and integrity matter, the outcome should be crystal clear: Worrell was improperly removed, for bad motives and based at least in part on false evidence. She should be reinstated, immediately and with all the contempt DeSantis’ actions have merited.

The Orlando Sentinel Editorial Board consists of Opinion Editor Krys Fluker, Editor-in-Chief Julie Anderson and Viewpoints Editor Jay Reddick. Contact us at insight@orlandosentinel.com