TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Last December, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida asked two high-level aides at a meeting in his office if any elected state prosecutors were “not enforcing the law.”
It was a brief and unprompted inquiry, one of the aides said later in a deposition. But it soon led to the Republican governor zeroing in on Tampa’s top prosecutor, Andrew H. Warren, a Democrat with a progressive policy bent. In August, flanked by law enforcement officers, Mr. DeSantis made the startling announcement that he was suspending Mr. Warren from office, chiefly for pledging that he would not prosecute those who seek or provide abortions.
Whether the suspension violated Mr. Warren’s free speech rights and represented an overreach of the governor’s executive authority are now questions before a federal judge in a trial that began on Tuesday in Tallahassee, the state capital. Mr. Warren had sued Mr. DeSantis, seeking to be reinstated.
“It’s been 117 days since the governor suspended democracy,” Mr. Warren said outside the federal courthouse in downtown Tallahassee before the trial got underway. “A trial is the search for the truth, and, in this building, the truth matters.”