The US Appeals Court for the Eleventh Circuit found on Wednesday that Florida Governor Ron DeSantis violated a local prosecutor’s First Amendment rights under the US Constitution when he suspended the prosecutor for refusing to enforce state laws surrounding access to reproductive health. The case has now been sent back down to the trial court level.

The case originated from DeSantis’s decision to suspend Hillsborough County State Attorney Andrew Warren in August 2022 following the US Supreme Court’s decision to overturn the landmark Roe v. Wade abortion rights decision. Warren had taken a stance against enforcing Florida’s laws regarding access to abortion and transgender healthcare in signing a letter alongside 91 other prosecutors from across the US.

Challenging his suspension on First Amendment grounds, Warren filed a lawsuit in a federal district court in Florida. He cited to 42 U.S.C. § 1983 in claiming that DeSantis “suspended him in retaliation for his First Amendment activity.” Although his case was initially dismissed by the district court, the US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit has now reversed that decision.

In the decision, written by Circuit Judge Jill Pryor, the Eleventh Circuit found that the district court had made two critical errors. The court found:

We conclude that the district court erred in two ways: first, in concluding that the First Amendment did not protect Warren’s support of a sentence in the advocacy statement about prosecuting abortion cases, and second, in concluding that the First Amendment did not preclude DeSantis from suspending Warren to gain political benefit from bringing down a reform prosecutor. We therefore remand for the district court to reconsider whether De-Santis would have made the same decision based solely on Warren’s performance and the two office policies.

The Eleventh Circuit’s decision also emphasized that the First Amendment shields Warren’s statements, as they address national issues rather than specific Florida laws. The court continued, “The First Amendment prevents DeSantis from identifying a reform prosecutor and then suspending him to garner political benefit.”

When the case arrives back at the district court, the Eleventh Circuit said that DeSantis must “prove that unprotected activity, such as Warren’s actual performance or his policies, motivated him to suspend Warren,” rather than the First Amendment grounds the court identified.