Gov. Ron DeSantis stunned Tampa Bay Thursday when he removed Andrew Warren from his office as Hillsborough County state’s attorney.
DeSantis said Warren, a Democrat and rising star in progressive law enforcement circles, had put herself “above the law” by vowing not to enforce laws that limit abortion or children’s ability to of seeking certain treatments for gender dysphoria. DeSantis used a suspension clause in the Florida Constitution that means Warren has essentially been 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 scored a major upset 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 DA race. At the time, the Times called Warren’s victory a “stunning moment of election night.”
Warren, a former federal prosecutor, ran an aggressive campaign attacking his opponent for alleged absenteeism and a lack of sensitivity to crime victims. (Ober said at the time that both characterizations were misleading.) Warren also pledged to rehabilitate those convicted of felonies and to 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 State Attorney’s Office. Soon after, evidence presented to the unit by the Innocence Project led a judge to overturn 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 drive was one of Warren’s many progressive initiatives. He has rarely sought the death penalty in capital murder cases. And he had prevented his office from charging people for driving on 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 highest-profile flap of Warren’s tenure as prosecutor came during the worst of the coronavirus pandemic. In April 2020, the prosecutor supported the arrest of a megachurch pastor who had held church services in person. DeSantis then signed an executive order allowing in-person services to continue.
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In response, Warren called DeSantis’ move “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, amounts to “criminalizing peaceful protests.”
The anti-protest bills (HB1/SB484) do not help prosecutors and directly undermine the First Am’s freedoms of speech and assembly by criminalizing the peaceful protests of many based on the illegal conduct of a 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 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 she would not file charges against abortion patients. In a tweet, he reasoned that the Florida Constitution has a clause protecting the right to privacy.
That proclamation was one of DeSantis’ justifications for suspending the prosecutor.
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 alluded to support for Warren’s campaign from wealthy progressives hoping to remake the criminal justice system.
“We can go back and look at some of these elections and all the money they’re getting from people who don’t live in Florida who are 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 profile of Warren the Times 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 idea how much money he gave, who it went to, etc.
5. Tampa has seen more murders in recent years.
Tampa’s violent crime rate has risen in recent years, with the city posting the most murders in 2021 it has seen since 1994, according to Tampa Police Department statistics compiled by the Times editorial board.
While such crimes are on the rise statewide and around the country, Tampa has seen slightly more murders than most other Florida cities, the editorial board said in April.