Ron DeSantis, suspended Hillsborough State Attorney Andrew Warren to come face-to-face in federal court Monday

TAMPA, Fla. - Gov. Ron DeSantis and suspended Hillsborough State Attorney Andrew Warren will face off in Tallahassee federal court Monday, in a case experts said Friday could have major implications for the Florida legal system.

Warren, who believes his job never should have been taken from him, will be asking a federal judge to reinstate him as the county's top prosecutor.

"We've said from the beginning there's so much more at stake than my job," he told FOX 13. "This is a fight to make sure that we still have functioning elections in our democracy, to make sure that the governor isn't a king who can just overturn an election."

DeSantis suspended Warren from office on August 4, citing Warren's pledge to not enforce the state's 15-week abortion ban and his vow to not criminalize minors seeking a sex change operation, which is not state law.

Warren sued the governor, accusing him of abusing his authority and violating his free speech.

"The governor suspended me for talking about things, for voicing my opposition to two of his favorite culture war issues," Warren said.

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DeSantis, however, has maintained Warren was guilty of a dereliction of duty.

"We are going to make sure that our laws are enforced and that no individual prosecutor puts himself above the law," DeSantis said the day he made the announcement.

The governor also accused Warren of having policies of "presumptive non-prosecution" of cases involving certain crimes.

In response to a public records request asking for copies of these policies, acting Hillsborough State Attorney Susan Lopez sent two documents. One pertained to Tampa Police Department's bicycle-stop policy, which federal investigators determined unfairly targeted minorities. Warren has said the policy was carefully crafted following meetings with law enforcement, civil rights leaders and community members.

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Lopez also provided FOX 13 with a document showing Warren had a policy of presumptive non-prosecution for a list of lower-level offenses, which mostly involved traffic offenses. That policy, however, allowed prosecutors to use their discretion and file charges if there were public safety concerns.

"That's not only the way a prosecutor should do their job. It's the way a prosecutor is required to do their jobs," said Warren.

"In my day we didn't have lists like that. Everything was dealt with on a case-by-case basis," said Jeff Brown, a legal expert and former prosecutor for Pinellas and Pasco Counties. "It was much more of an issue of, well, who is the defendant? What is there about him? And then looking at the case and deciding what's the right decision for that case, we really didn't have blanket policies to not charge certain things."

In a memo Lopez sent to her staff shortly after taking office, she told employees she was rescinding these policies. In that same letter, however, Lopez said she was reversing Warren's policy of "not seeking mandatory minimum sentences in felony cases." Her office did not provide FOX 13 with any evidence that the policy existed.

These issues may end up part of the federal case, which Brown said could set an important precedent.

"I think it's going to set a precedent from here on out as to how much power does the governor have to be able to do this," he said, adding the case might not be as clear-cut as Warren hopes. "I think what really got Andrew Warren into all this problem was you're announcing a policy decision and saying what you won't do before any of those factual cases are before you and I think that's also one of the issues that are going here...and I think the governor is justified on [his criticism of] that."

Brown told FOX 13 it's hard to predict how this case will play out.

"I can see the merits pretty much on both sides," said Brown. "I think one of the issues is what kind of role or authority does the governor have to be able to remove a state attorney? We've never really had that issue. The governor's position is that [Warren] is an employee to some extent, that he's a county official and [DeSantis] has the right to remove somebody for negligence or for incompetence. But Andrew Warren is arguing he's an elected official, that he's responsible to the voters. So that's a little different take on it."

Spokespersons for both the governor and Lopez did not respond to requests for comment.