When James Uthmeier, Florida’s appointed attorney general, announced that he would refuse to enforce more than 80 Florida laws related to equal protection because he personally disagrees with them, it was more than a provocative legal stance. It was a declaration of selective enforcement and a stunning display of hypocrisy.
This is the same individual who supported my suspension on the fabricated claim that I was “not enforcing the law.” Yet now he openly proclaims that he will not enforce laws he does not like. Either the law matters or political agendas do. Florida cannot succeed under both.
For Central Florida, this double standard has had real and lasting consequences.
When I was removed from office, our community did not simply lose an elected state attorney. Survivors of violent crime lost continuity. Victims lost prosecutors they trusted. Career prosecutors and staff were thrown into chaos as cases were reassigned, priorities shifted, and morale collapsed. Law enforcement agencies were left navigating uncertainty. A justice system already under strain was destabilized by political interference.
When I returned, it wasn’t to the office we built. It was to a fractured workplace with depleted resources and staffing, disrupted case management, broken relationships and shaken trust. Experienced prosecutors had left. Others were demoralized. Ongoing prosecutions had been rerouted. Rebuilding stability, professionalism and public confidence has required an enormous and ongoing effort, all because political leaders decided that local democracy was inconvenient.
Worrell
That is why the appointed attorney general’s declaration is so dangerous.
Uthmeier is not a lawmaker. He is not a judge. His constitutional role is to uphold and defend Florida law, not nullify it through selective enforcement. When he publicly announces that he will not enforce laws he disagrees with, he is claiming a power the Florida Constitution does not give him.
This is not an isolated incident.
We have already seen a troubling pattern of intervention and selective enforcement. In a widely publicized Orlando road rage case, Uthmeier publicly weighed in before the legal process had played out, deciding that “Stand Your Ground” should apply and that he would not defend the prosecution. That kind of interference is extraordinary. Prosecutors are charged with weighing evidence and applying the law. When the Attorney General’s Office telegraphs that it will not defend a prosecution simply because Uthmeier disagrees, he undermines the independence of every prosecutor in Florida. It tells local communities that their elected leaders’ decisions will be overridden whenever Tallahassee disagrees.
We have also seen a similar pattern in the state’s shifting approach to firearm laws, where enforcement priorities have been altered not by the Legislature, but by the attorney general choosing which statutes deserve defense. Regardless of where one stands on gun policy, the danger is the same. Laws are no longer being applied consistently but politically. That is not the rule of law. That is rule by preference.
This type of lawlessness has real consequences.
When Uthmeier picks which laws to enforce, he teaches the entire system that compliance is optional for those with the correct politics. That erodes public trust. Communities, especially those already disproportionately affected by crime and inequality, lose faith that the system will protect them fairly. Victims question whether their cases will matter. Defendants wonder whether politics, not evidence, will decide their fate.
And the damage doesn’t stop there — it damages public safety. Consistent enforcement of the law creates deterrence, stability, and accountability. Selective enforcement creates gaps. Those gaps are where violence, exploitation, and corruption thrive.
Perhaps most dangerously, it normalizes political punishment. We have now seen that elected prosecutors can be removed or criminally investigated not because they violated the law, but because they disagreed with the wrong people politically. That precedent chills independent judgment across Florida and invites fear-based decision-making instead of justice-based decisions.
Even more alarming, Uthemeier’s conduct pushes Florida backward toward a period of historical systemic injustice when laws were enforced unevenly, civil rights were ignored, and legal power was used to entrench political hierarchies. We know what happens when the law becomes a tool of ideology instead of a shield for equal protection. It fractures communities, deepens inequality and weakens democracy.
Every public official in Florida swears an oath to support, protect, and defend the Constitution. That oath is not symbolic. Leaders who stand by while Uthmeier openly refuses to enforce duly enacted laws are not neutral. They are complicit in the erosion of the rule of law.
I know what unchecked political power looks like, because I lived through it.
Florida deserves an attorney general who respects the rule of law, not one who reshapes it based on political preference. No one is above the law, not even the state’s chief legal officer.
The Constitution demands better. The people of Florida deserve better. Because when the rule of law becomes optional, justice becomes untenable.
Monique Worrell is the elected state attorney for the 9th Judicial circuit, which includes Orange and Osceola counties.
