It's a race to the election finish line as one state attorney contest draws attention among residents in Orange and Osceola counties.
Running for Orange and Osceola County state attorney is incumbent Andrew Bain. He was appointed by Republican Ron DeSantis but is running as an independent. His challenger is Monique Worell, a Democrat and former state attorney.
Who are the candidates and why do they want the position?
Last year, DeSantis suspended Worrell on claims that she avoided minimum mandatory sentences for charges that included gun crimes and drug trafficking. Worrell said the suspension was unjust and one of the main motivations for her to run again. She said she wants to fight for her community and prosecute cases fairly.
“I've gone to Tallahassee, I've lobbied for the needs of this community, and I plan to continue to do that, because my first priority is this community and ensuring that we get everything that we're supposed to have,” Worrell said.
Before she was state attorney, Worrell served as the circuit’s public defender, worked as a private criminal defense lawyer and taught at her alma mater as a law professor.
In her time as state attorney, Worrell was the founding director of the Conviction Integrity Unit, which investigates possible wrongful convictions.
After her suspension, DeSantis appointed Bain. Now the incumbent, Bain said he hopes to continue to put Worrell’s suspension, his appointment and all the political drama aside and approach his job through the lens of justice, not politics. Bain said this race comes down to doing the job fairly.
He’s no newcomer to the criminal justice system. Bain served as an assistant state attorney. DeSantis appointed him to a judgeship in 2020 and as state attorney in 2023. Bain said his motivation for running again is to keep doing the work he’s been doing; helping people feel safe and preventing crime.
“It's about helping our community-building, making it safer, making it more resilient, giving it the tools that it really can use to really help escalate us as a community from the criminal justice standpoint,” Bain said.
How do Bain and Worrell approach criminal prosecution in Orange and Osceola counties?
Worrell’s approach to prosecutions focuses on reform and diversion: Incarceration should only be used when offenders are a danger to society, and alternative methods should be used for others facing prosecution.
Bain said people should vote for him because the community is safer than it was during Worrell’s time as state attorney.
Bain defends the changes he made from Worrell’s administration, saying he modernized the diversion programs and made them more efficient.
Bain, like DeSantis, argued that Worrell would only prosecute major offenses and let some offenders go without proper prosecution.
Like Worrell, Bain uses crime diversion and reform programs, and they both support the same for juvenile programs.
Both Bain and Worrel support diversion programs and education to provide resources to individuals before a crime is committed.
Diversion programs are used in juvenile cases as alternatives to incarceration. Those include counseling, treatment and education.
Why is the relationship between a state attorney and law enforcement so important?
Law enforcement and the state attorney must maintain a collaborative relationship to fairly prosecute cases.
In this election, only Andrew Bain has received an endorsement from a law enforcement official: Orange County Sheriff John Mina.
Mina publicly criticized Worrell during her time as state attorney. He said that while Worrell was in the position, she was not prosecuting cases for things like violent crimes and drug charges.
Worrell acknowledged the importance of putting differences aside and said she worked to create and maintain cooperative relationships with law enforcement.
Where do Bain and Worrell stand on Amendment 3 legalizing marijuana?
Amendment 3 allows adults 21 years or older to possess, purchase or use marijuana products and marijuana accessories for non-medical, personal consumption by smoking, ingestion or otherwise. Find more information about the amendment here.
Worrell is for the amendment. She said cases involving marijuana overcrowd the court system and the attention needs to be turned to violent crime instead.
Bain said he had not made a decision on where he stands on the amendment.
What are their top priorities if they take office?
During a debate hosted in September by the Tiger Bay Club in Orlando, Bain and Worrell shared what they plan to implement if they win the race.
Worrell said that, under Bain’s administration, he made changes in policy to her diversion programs and she aims to undo that.
“First day in office is going to be putting back all of the programs under my administration that had proven to be successful, the data driven, research based, relationships with community organizations that helped us reduce crime,” Worrell said.
Bain defended those changes and said he modernized the diversion programs and made them more efficient. He said the diversion programs were backlogged when he was appointed and he had to move over 1,000 cases along.
If elected, he plans to go one step further and implement a juvenile Step-Down program.
Variations of step down are used in other circuits across the nation. It’s a program designed to slowly monitor the youth as they become reintroduced to society after prosecution.
“So we can step down our juveniles from our detentions and from our residential program, set them down into a program here locally so we can better integrate them back into society,” Bain said.
Bain and the State Attorney’s Office also announced a new Hate Crimes Task Force just a week before the election. The task force is funded by a grant worth $1 million through the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) Fiscal Year 2024 Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Program under the Justice Department’s Office of Justice Programs.
It will aim to prevent hate crimes and incidents by educating the community and holding offenders accountable. Find more about the Office of Justice Programs here.
