Prosecutors
One of 2 prosecutors ousted by DeSantis wins election; how did other progressive prosecutors fare?
Voters have rejected several progressive prosecutors. Among high-profile races in Florida and California, the only liberal victor was Monique H. Worrell, who reclaimed her position as the Orange-Osceola state attorney in Florida after being ousted in August 2023 by Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. (Photo by John Locher/The Associated Press)
Voters have rejected several progressive prosecutors.
Among high-profile races in Florida and California, the only liberal victor was Monique H. Worrell, who reclaimed her position as the Orange-Osceola state attorney in Florida after being ousted in August 2023 by Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, report the Orlando Sentinel and the Florida Phoenix.
“I feel vindicated,” Worrell told the Orlando Sentinel shortly before final results confirmed her win.
DeSantis had said he suspended Worrell partly because of charging decisions that avoided the triggering of mandatory minimum sentences and sentencing enhancements.
Another prosecutor ousted by DeSantis, Andrew Warren, lost to Republican Suzy Lopez in Hillsborough County. DeSantis suspended Warren in August 2022, citing “woke” positions on abortion and transgender medical care.
In California, progressive Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascón lost a reelection bid to Nathan Hochman, report the Associated Press and NBC News.
“The voters of Los Angeles County have spoken and have said enough is enough of DA Gascón’s pro-criminal extreme policies,” Hochman said in a statement.
In Oakland, California, voters recalled another progressive prosecutor, Pamela Price, according to the Alameda County, California, election website and results posted by ABC 7 News.
Losses by Gascón and Price follow the recall of progressive San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin in June 2022.
The three prosecutors had “offered new approaches to the criminal justice system, ones promising a greater focus on pursuing police wrongdoing and less emphasis on prison sentence enhancements,” Law.com reports. Public sentiment apparently changed after an increase in violent crime in California.
In keeping with the more conservative trend, California voters approved Proposition 36, which increased penalties for fentanyl and other drug charges, KABC reports. The measure also creates a new crime category in which drug defendants could receive treatment instead of prison. It also creates heightened penalties for shoplifting and theft, the Hill reports.
Another high-profile Democratic prosecutor, Fani Willis of Fulton County, Georgia, won reelection Tuesday, the Associated Press reports. Willis is the prosecutor who indicted then-former President Donald Trump in August 2023 for an alleged racketeering conspiracy intended to overturn the 2020 election results.
“While Willis is a Democrat,” the Associated Press reports, “she doesn’t fit into the group of progressive prosecutors elected in jurisdictions across the country in recent years. Some critics on the left believe she’s overzealous in her use of the state’s anti-racketeering and anti-gang laws, unnecessarily complicating cases to get the enhanced penalties attached to those statutes.”
See also:
Progressive prosecutors are encountering pushback
Politics are at play in states seeking to rein in ‘progressive’ prosecutors
