Precrime: A predictive policing system dedicated to apprehending and detaining people before they have the opportunity to commit a given crime. The term was coined by Philip K. Dick and became the basis for the plot of The Minority Report, a short story of his, published in Fantastic Universe Science Fiction magazine in 1956.*
On Thursday of this week, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, surrounded by Tampa Bay Area sheriffs (fifteen of them, all male), suspended Andrew Warren, the twice-elected Hillsborough County State Attorney, saying he violated his oath of office and has been soft on crime.
DeSantis then appointed Susan Lopez to serve as acting state attorney during Warren’s suspension. Lopez was appointed by the governor to serve as a Hillsborough County judge in 2021. She previously served as the Assistant State Attorney in the 13th Judicial Circuit.
DeSantis suspended Warren because in June, following the Supreme Court’s overturning of the Roe v. Wade decision of 1972, Warren joined 91 other attorneys general and district attorneys around the country in signing a statement declaring they would “decline” to prosecute “reproductive health decisions.”
Florida’s Senate will now take up Warren’s suspension. If it upholds the governor’s move, Lopez will remain State Attorney until an election can be held to choose Warren’s permanent replacement, permanent, that is, until the next election, or until another suspension if DeSantis becomes annoyed again.
I would like to mention a few points to consider about all this:
First, Florida’s Constitution gives its Governor the right to remove any elected official “for reasons of misfeasance, malfeasance, neglect of duty, drunkenness, incompetence, permanent inability to perform official duties, or commission of a felony.”
Governor Rick Scott, DeSantis’s predecessor and a politician about whom we have written before, exercised this power twice. In 2018, he suspended Broward County elections supervisor Brenda Snipes on the heels of a tumultuous recount, citing a litany of well-publicized problems, including the misplacement and inadvertent mixing of ballots. A year before, he had reassigned more than two dozen potential death penalty cases away from Orlando state attorney Aramis Ayala after she declared she wouldn’t pursue capital punishment.
As the Editorial Board of the Tampa Bay Times wrote yesterday, “That remedy was more appropriate than a blanket removal from office.” But still, DeSantis does have the power to do what he did.
Second, everything Ron DeSantis does from morning till night must be colored in the light of his presidential ambitions. He, like so many other politicians who believe they deserve to be President, is forever circling above the bloated body of Donald Trump, waiting and hoping for the former President to stumble and fall, so he may swoop down and grab the political gold ring. Sadly, there is no Cincinnatus here, Cincinnatus, the Roman farmer of 458 BCE revered for his virtue, who left his farm to become General and in 16 days rescued Rome from imminent defeat and promptly retired to his farm.
Third, what exactly did Warren do? Answer: Nothing, except signing a group statement saying “we decline to use our offices’ resources to criminalize reproductive health decisions.” Yes, the wording could have been better, much better, actually. It should have made clear the prosecutors would make decisions on an individual basis. Regardless, Warren has yet to refuse to prosecute anybody for violating Florida’s anti-abortion law. DeSantis’s suspension is a pre-emptive strike by the Ron DeSantis Precrime Unit, a bone thrown to his political base for his upcoming 2022 gubernatorial reelection and presidential run in 2024. If you doubt that, ask yourself why DeSantis spent so much time at his Thursday press conference talking about San Francisco, George Soros and “woke” criminal justice reform? Ask yourself why the sheriffs he called upon to speak spent so much time talking about the “evils’ found in other parts of the country, the very blue parts?
Finally, if Governor DeSantis can “suspend” Andrew Warren because he thinks Warren will do something he has yet to do, then he can suspend any legitimately-elected Florida official with whom he disagrees. That is scary.
Who’s next?
Tags: Florida, Ron DeSantis