DeSantis calls on Florida House to impeach judge whose release of convicted sex offender preceded child's killing

Gov. Ron DeSantis stood at a Tampa press conference on Tuesday and told the Florida House of Representatives, plainly and directly, that it was time to remove a judge from the bench. The target: Leon County Judge Tiffany Baker-Carper, who declined to hold a convicted sex offender in custody pending sentencing. A month later, that man and the child's own mother beat and killed his 5-year-old stepdaughter, Missy Mogle.

DeSantis did not mince words.

"To my friends in the Florida House of Representatives, I don't think what you've done is enough."

"You have the power, and you have sufficient numbers in your chamber, to impeach this judge, Tiffany Baker-Carper."

Republicans hold nearly 70% of lawmakers in each chamber. The math isn't a problem. A two-thirds vote in the House impeaches judicial officers; a two-thirds vote in the Senate removes them. The votes are there. The only question is whether the will is.

How a child ended up dead

Daniel Spencer, a 35-year-old, was convicted in an underage sex sting for attempting to meet a 15-year-old girl. According to the Tallahassee Democrat, Judge Baker-Carper did not lock him up pending sentencing because he had already been out of jail for a year without violations and had no violent criminal history, as Yahoo News reports.

A month after his release, Spencer and the girl's mother, Chloe Spencer, beat and killed Missy Mogle. Both Spencers were charged with second-degree murder in May 2025.

Read that sequence again. A man convicted of trying to meet a minor for sex was left free. Weeks later, a 5-year-old girl was dead. The judicial reasoning that kept him on the streets amounted to: he hadn't done anything violent yet.

That is the logic of a system that treats judicial caution as a one-way street, always cautious on behalf of the defendant, never on behalf of the people a defendant might harm next.

Missy's Law

The press conference doubled as a signing ceremony. DeSantis put his name on Missy's Law, a priority bill for Attorney General James Uthmeier. The legislation demands judges keep defendants convicted of dangerous crimes in custody instead of freeing them ahead of sentencing.

DeSantis made the stakes personal:

"If we had this bill in place then, Missy would be alive today."

The law is a direct response to the gap that Baker-Carper's decision exposed. Under the previous framework, a judge could look at a man convicted in a sex sting and decide that releasing him was reasonable because his rap sheet lacked a violence charge. Missy's Law closes that discretionary window for defendants convicted of dangerous offenses. No more rolling the dice on whether a convicted predator will behave between conviction and sentencing.

A law is not enough

DeSantis made clear that signing a bill was the floor, not the ceiling. Passing a law to prevent the next tragedy does nothing to hold accountable the judge whose decision enabled this one.

"Until you start holding these judges accountable, they are gonna continue to find ways to benefit the criminal element."

He called the situation what it was:

"It's a miscarriage of justice, a dereliction of judicial duty."

This is a governor who has long battled what he calls "activist judges" and has insisted for years that unruly judges must be held accountable. Baker-Carper, elected to the Second Judicial Circuit on Nov. 3, 2020, has offered no public statement in the source material about her decision or the governor's impeachment call.

The accountability question

The broader pattern here extends well beyond one judge in Tallahassee. Across the country, judicial leniency that produces catastrophic outcomes rarely carries professional consequences. Judges enjoy extraordinary insulation from accountability. They are not fired when their calls prove fatal. They are not demoted. In most cases, they are not even publicly questioned with any force.

The impeachment mechanism exists for a reason. It is the constitutional check on judicial officers who fail their duty so spectacularly that elections alone cannot correct the damage. DeSantis's call to the Florida House is a challenge to use a tool the founders provided.

President Trump recently called for a federal judge to be impeached as well. The idea of holding judges accountable is no longer a fringe position. It is becoming a governing expectation.

Conservative frustration with the judiciary isn't abstract ideology. It is rooted in cases exactly like this one, where a real person, a 5-year-old girl, paid the ultimate price for a judge's decision to prioritize a convicted sex offender's freedom over public safety. The system that produced this outcome does not deserve deference. It deserves scrutiny, and where warranted, removal.

The Florida House has the votes. It has the constitutional authority. It has a dead child's name on a bill the governor just signed.

Now it has no excuse.