Issue #196: DeSantis' Meddling in the 9th Judicial Circuit
Issue #196: DeSantis' Meddling in the 9th Judicial Circuit
DeSantis doesn't want Worrell back
Back in August of 2023, Ron DeSantis used his latest abuse of power to suspend Democratic State Attorney Monique Worrell from office. Worrell represented the 9th Circuit, which includes all of Orange and Osceola County. If you didn’t know, Florida is divided into 20 Judicial Circuits: each having an elected State Attorney and Public defender. The individual districts and their partisan lean is below.
DeSantis’ reasoning for suspending Worrell was a broad sentiment that she was not “tough on crime” enough. DeSantis used the suspension to rail about reform-minded prosecutors. The reality was this was part of DeSantis’ continued efforts to appear strong to far-right voters as he tried to outflank Trump in the Presidential Primary contest. By the time of the suspension, the DeSantis campaign was already struggling and falling well behind Donald Trump.
In Florida, the Governor has a broad power to suspend local officials from office. This is usually used for people under investigations or directly indicted for crimes. DeSantis, however, has expanded this to suspensions based on broad policy disagreements and not actual wrongdoing. DeSantis similarly suspended Hillsborough State Attorney Andrew Warren over abortion policy. I delved into all this back in 2023 in this article below.
After suspending Worrell, DeSantis appointed Andrew Bain as the new State Attorney. Worrell vowed to seek her office in the 2024 election and cleared the Democratic primary. She and Bain will face off in November, with Bain running as an independent. However, this one-on-one contest is only thanks to some recent machinations within the Republican Party; with accusations from a former GOP candidate of meddling by the DeSantis inner circle.
There is a bit to unpack here. Before I delve into the latest controversy, I am going to quickly lay out how we got to this point.
The Victory of Reform
The State Attorney office for the 9th circuit has seen a great deal of turnover for the last decade. From 1980 to 2012, the State Attorney for the circuit was Democrat Lawson Lamar. In 2012, Jeff Ashton, who used to work in Lamar’s office, challenged his old boss. Ashton became nationally known when he was the lead prosecutor for the Casey Anthony trial. Ashton and Lamar spared over the trial strategy, which saw Anthony found not-guilty despite a mountain of clear evidence of her guilt. Ashton, who argued Lamar had lost his edge, namely hitting the incumbent for not directly trying cases anymore, defeated Lamar 55% to 45%.
However, Ashton would not enjoy the long tenure that Lamar had. Ashton got hit with one big personal scandal in 2015 when he was found to be on the Ashley Madison website; a meet-up site for married people looking to have affairs. In 2016, Ashton would lose his own primary re-election to attorney Aramis Ayala.
Ayala was part of a “reform prosecutor” movement. I discussed this in greater detail in a 2017 article, but broadly these candidates aimed to reshape prosecutor offices to deal with rehabilitation when possible and focus more extensively on crimes often overlooked by prosecutor offices; namely domestic violence. In fact it was Ashton’s decision to merge the domestic violence department with sex crimes, something decried by victim advocates as misdirecting attorneys, that sparked Ayala to run.
In her campaign, Ayala also had the aid of George Soros, a progressive donor that every anti-Semite and Republican on the planet will tell you secretly controls the world. Soros’ political committee, which sought to support Black women running for prosecutor offices, spent over $1,000,000 to aid Ayala’s election. With her primary win, which was fueled by support in Black and Hispanic communities, Ayala became the first Black female state attorney in Florida history.
Ayala would have a rocky tenure. In 2017, she announced she would not pursue the death penalty for any cases. Now this is of course the correct position, because not only is the death penalty not applied evenly, it is also a great moral crime. I’ll spare you all a 20 minute religious lecture on how the death penalty defies all Christian doctrine and instead leave you with this somber 5 minute scene from the West Wing where a Catholic Priest lays out why the practice is unacceptable.
After Ayala made her decision, then-Governor Rick Scott removed all capital cases to a neighboring State Attorney. The Florida courts would go on to affirm Scott’s authority to do that. In 2019, Ayala decided that the rigid constraints of the office; which allow prosecutorial discretion except when you don’t want to kill someone, was not for her and decided to not run for re-election.
Ayala would originally plan to run for the newly-drawn 10th Congressional District in 2022. However, she would eventually pivot to run for Attorney General. After winning a 3-way Democratic primary, she would lose the general election in the statewide GOP landslides of that year.
The Conspiracy Against Worrell
While Ayala decided not to run, she did have a successor in mind. Defense Attorney Monique Worrell, also a Black woman, had Ayala’s support in the four-way Democratic primary that followed. A good background on the candidates and the environment of the primary can be read here. Worrell would go on to win the primary by double-digits, with her closest contender being former circuit judge Belvin Perry Jr, who was the very judge to preside over the Casey Anthony trial.
In third was Deborah Barra, then chief assistant State Attorney. In dead last was Ryan Williams, a prosecutor who left Ayala’s office to continue death penalty cases that had been reassigned to the 10th circuit.
After winning the primary, Worrell would go on to easily defeat NPA candidate Jose Torroella in the general election.
After the election, Worrell’s term started off well enough. However, by 2022 to 2023, tensions emerged between her and Orange Sheriff John Mina and Osceola Sheriff Marcos Lopez. Both Sheriffs are Democrats, but just about every Democratic Sheriff in Florida is a fairly rigged “law and order” type that often scoffs at reform. The saga of the State Attorney office and the Sheriff departments is long and beyond the scope of this article. In early 2023 a clear rift emerged, and you can read account here. Long story short, the rift between Worrell and the Sheriffs, especially Mina it seems, revolved around holding officers accountable to providing evidence that might aid the defense in cases. This rift expanded when the Sheriff argued Worrell had not prosecuted some people as he believed they should have been.
A key case was that of Keith Moses, who shot and killed 3 people. Before the shooting, Moses had been arrested in 2021 when a car he was in spelled of cannabis. However, due to the lack of ability to test of it was illegal cannabis or legal hemp, no charges were filed. Sheriff Mina argued that had Moses been prosecuted and jailed back then, he wouldn’t have been able to commit the shootings later on. However, Worrell pointed out the limits in ability to bring charges and the recommendations of seasoned trial prosecutors who said the case would be lost at trial. The Miami Herald especially took the Sheriffs to task for claiming Worrell could have realistically done anything about that case. By every account, Worrell’s office followed the state laws and the judgment of prosecutors; who are legally bound to only bring cases to trial they believe they can win.
As the articles I linked confirm, both sheriffs began working with the DeSantis administration to find arguments for removing Worrell from her post. DeSantis began publicly calling out Worrell in the spring of 2023. DeSantis was known to be reaching out to Sheriffs across Florida to find reasons to suspend State Attorneys, so the police unions and Sheriff departments in both counties, eager to get rid of any “reform prosecutor,” increased their verbal attacks.
By this point DeSantis has already suspended Hillsborough State Attorney Andrew Warren. Finally in August of 2023, DeSantis suspended Worrell for not being “tough enough” on crime. Worrell noted that the decision came a day after DeSantis replaced the campaign manager for his then-struggling Presidential campaign. She took direct shots at the politics of the move.
“This is simply a smokescreen for Ron DeSantis’ failing and disastrous presidential campaign,” Worrell said. “He needed to get back in the media in some positive way that would be red meat for his base.”
DeSantis appointed Andrew Bain to the post. Both the Orange and Osceola Sheriffs pledged to work with Bain. All soooooooo convenient.
Worrell vowed to win her job back in 2024. Considering how Democratic the circuit is, this is a real possibility. As a result, the DeSantis administration has been going out of its way to involve itself in this election anyway possible.
The Circuit’s Solid Democratic Lean
For appointee Andrew Bain to have any chance at winning a full term of his own, he can not run as a Republican. The 9th Circuit is a very Democratic, often giving statewide Democratic candidates over 60% of the vote. Even in 2022, which saw such horrible turnout among Hispanic Democrats that it led to Osceola narrowly backing DeSantis, the circuit as a whole remained blue.
Even with the Osceola flip in 2022, Orange remained Democratic; hence keeping the whole circuit blue. I also cannot stress enough that the turnout dynamic from 2022 will not repeat with the Presidential contest, so we should easily expect Kamala Harris to best Trump by the district with around 57% to 61% of the vote. Below is how the 2022 Presidential Race and 2022 Attorney General Race went.
Here we see, even amid the 2022 red wave, that Ayala still won the vote in the 9th Circuit.
Considering this blue lean, it came as no surprise that Bain, despite originally filling to run as a Republican, in April of 2024 switched his candidate filing to non-partisan. Running with an R next to your name is just electoral death in the 9th Circuit. Running as an NPA at least gives Bain a chance. However, one issue remained for the anti-Worrell crowd; two Republicans were running for the job already. This would mean that a November contest would be a 3-way between Bain, Worrell, and the Republican Primary winner. In an already-blue circuit, this would be a guaranteed Worrell victory.
The Republican Primary Shenanigans
The Republican primary was a testy affair. Seth Hyman, who used to work in the State Attorney’s office, had the backing of the Orange and Osceola County Republican parties. Hyman was actually fired from the SA’s office back in 2017 when Aramis Ayala found out that he had instances or withholding evidence to the defense. Hyman’s primary opponent, private attorney Thomas Feiter, took Hyman to task for his firing and called his previous behavior unethical.
Despite being outspent by Feiter, Hyman was able to secure the primary victory with 62% of the vote. Hyman was aided by official party endorsing and backing.
I didn’t catch this at the time, but apparently the rumor mill before the primary was that Hyman might drop out if he secured the nomination. This came to pass on September 4th when Hyman ended his campaign. In his statement, he directly stated that electoral considerations were at play.
In order to give this community the best chance of not seeing a second term for Monique Worrell, I have decided to withdraw from the State Attorney’s race and will not appear on the General Election ballot. I do not want the anti-Worrell vote to be split, and I am willing to make this major sacrifice to further that purpose.”
Now when a party nominee drops out like this, the party does have the ability to appoint a replacement. It should come as no surprise that the GOP opted NOT to do that; leaving November as just Worrell vs Bain.
Thomas Feiter, however, is not going away quietly. Back in July, he actually filed a bar complaint over how the primary was going. In his complaint, which you can read coverage of here, Feiter discusses DeSantis’ Chief of Staff James Uthmeier and GrayRobinson Attorney Jeff Aaron trying to bribe him to get out of the race
“At this meeting, Mr. Uthmeier and Mr. Aaron asked me what I wanted/needed in order to drop out of the race. They asked if I was interested in being a judge or running for the State Legislature. I said I had no such ambition.
The complaint details Feiter being told the plan was for Hyman to get enough GOP support to win the primary, but that the plan was always for it to be Bain v Worrell 1-on-1 in the general. Feiter said the Republicans intend to spend over $1,000,000 on securing Bain’s victory.
The bar compliant was eventually closed, namely because it was ruled more of a civil matter. With that, on September 9th, it was reported that Feiter has said he intends to file a lawsuit over the entire situation; arguing Hyman was essentially a prop candidate. Feiter announced this at a press conference WITH Worrell that same day.
It seems like Feiter, who was definitely the more liberal/moderate candidate in the primary, intends to be a thorn in the side of DeSantis and Bain heading into the general election. We will have to see how this develops.
Final Thoughts
The latest story out of the GOP primary for this race shows just how much the DeSantis administration intends to control everything in Florida. It is up in the air what will happen if Worrell wins, which to be clear is still VERY LIKELY. Will DeSantis just suspend her right away? Will he wait for any excuse? I don’t know. However, it is important to fight back against his abuses of power and force him to either back down and make his power grabs publicly.
As Worrell and Feiter’s press conference today said - Democracy is on the line.