15 States Side With DeSantis in Battle Over Right to Oust Prosecutors

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis answers questions from the media in the Florida Cabinet following his State of the State address during a joint session of the Senate and House of Representatives, at the Capitol in Tallahassee, Fla., on March 7, 2023. Cheney Orr/AFP via Getty Images

A coalition of 15 attorneys general is urging a federal appeals court “to affirm states’ authority” to remove local prosecutors who, motivated by leftist ideology, refuse to enforce laws.

“Prosecutors have no right to exercise a veto over an entire law,” Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost said in a news release. “But some are acting as though they do—and they are breaking our system of government. The political preferences of a single prosecutor cannot be allowed to override a lawfully enacted statute.”

Yost and 14 of his peers align with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in a lawsuit that an ex-prosecutor filed after DeSantis ousted him from office in 2022. Andrew Warren, who served as the state’s attorney in Hillsborough County, had promised no prosecutions of abortionists for alleged violations of Florida law.

Warren appealed a lower court’s ruling to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit in Atlanta. The Yost-led coalition filed a brief, asking the appeals court to reject Warren’s contention that DeSantis violated his free speech rights by ousting him.

“Government employees do not have a First Amendment right not to enforce the law,” Yost’s news release said.

Elbert P. Tuttle U.S. Courthouse, home of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta, on Nov. 20, 2007. Eoghanacht via Wikimedia Commons/Public Domain

Another Attempted Ouster

The action comes while Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey, a supporter of Yost’s brief, is attempting to oust St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner.

In February, Bailey declared that Gardner had “forfeited” her right to continue holding her elected office. He accused her of mismanaging her office, resulting in thousands of criminal cases being dismissed and victims’ rights being trampled. The Democrat prosecutor alleges that Bailey, a Republican, is targeting her for political reasons.

A trial is expected in September unless a judge dismisses the Gardner case.

George Soros answers questions after delivering a speech on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum (WEF) annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, on May 24, 2022. Fabrice Coffrini/AFP via Getty Images

Unlike Warren, Gardner’s lawyers say she has committed no “willful” acts of refusing to prosecute cases. However, Bailey accuses her of lax enforcement. And Gardner has benefited from the help of billionaire George Soros, according to The Missouri Times.

For several years, Soros has given financial support to dozens of U.S. prosecutors who embrace his “reform” agenda. Top Republicans blame Soros-backed prosecutors for crime waves in many of the nation’s largest, Democrat-run cities.

“Our system is rife with injustices that make us all less safe,” Soros says in a 2022 essay. He urges “preventing crime with strategies that work—deploying mental-health professionals in crisis situations, investing in youth job programs, and creating opportunities for education behind bars.”

Discretion Versus Abdication

In the DeSantis-Warren case brief, Bailey and his peers assert that they “can properly remove from office prosecutors who make non-prosecution pledges.”

“These pledges violate the traditional separation of powers between government branches,” the brief says. “As every schoolchild learns, the legislative branch, not the executive, makes law.”

The brief acknowledges that prosecutors “have considerable discretion” over whether to proceed with charges on a case-by-case basis. But they “do not have the power to effectively repeal laws by categorically suspending enforcement,” the attorneys general say.

Attorney General Dave Yost in Columbus, Ohio, on Nov. 6, 2018. Justin Merriman/Getty Images

That’s been a trend in recent years, the brief says; “prosecutors have abandoned prosecutorial discretion in favor of prosecutorial abdication.”

In his news release, Yost argues that ideologically based prosecutions can foster the targeting of prosecutors’ political enemies while their allies go scot-free.

“A world in which each prosecutor is free to ignore the law in favor of his or her own individual sense of what the law ought to be,” Yost said, “is a world where what will get you arrested depends on who’s in office—a government of individual prejudices, not a government of laws.”

In addition to Bailey and Yost, the other attorneys general who signed on to Yost’s brief are from Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, and West Virginia.

If Warren’s appeal were to succeed, the decision “would hinder states’ ability to protect their constitutional systems from wholesale prosecutorial abuse,” Yost’s news release said.

The Atlanta appeals court will hear the case during the first week of May, Reuters reported.