The Milwaukee County judge on trial for helping a violent illegal immigrant elude federal law enforcement authorities has been convicted on one of the two charges against her.
A jury late Thursday found Judge Hannah Dugan guilty of felony obstruction but determined there wasn’t enough evidence to convict her on a misdemeanor charge of concealing an individual from arrest.
Her attorney told reporters that Dugan will appeal the conviction, a verdict that should serve as a wake-up call to judges who disregard laws they don’t like in the furtherance of judicial activism.
Daniel Suhr, president of the Center for American Rights, said the verdict is a vindication that the rule of law applies to everyone, regardless of their position or power.
“Judges are not above the law. Their core function is to respect the rule of law, not to undermine it. That means judges must both enforce and follow laws regardless of their personal feelings about them as a matter of policy,” Suhr told The Federalist Thursday. “Judge Dugan failed in that fundamental aspect of her role, and in doing so broke the law herself.
‘Get the Heat’
Dugan did herself no favors in Milwaukee County Circuit Court on April 18, the day Department of Homeland Security officials showed up outside her courtroom with an administrative warrant to arrest Eduardo Flores-Ruiz, a previously deported Mexican national. The illegal alien was appearing in court that day on an unrelated misdemeanor battery charge. Federal prosecutors in the four-day trial repeatedly pointed to Dugan’s comment to a court reporter that she would “get the heat” for escorting Flores-Ruiz and his attorney to the “jury door,” an exit not accessible to the public, according to audio recordings and transcripts.
Flores-Ruiz then fled while a “visibly angry” Dugan demanded the federal law enforcement officials speak to the chief judge.
The charges were so serious that Wisconsin’s liberal-majority Supreme Court ordered Dugan placed on administrative leave, stating that doing so was in the “public interest.”
Dugan’s attorneys early on argued that the federal government’s case should be dismissed. They noted judges enjoy wide-ranging immunity. But that immunity covers civil actions, not criminal indictments.
In August, U.S. District Court Judge Lynn Adelman agreed with a U.S. Magistrate’s previous recommendation that Dugan’s motion to dismiss be denied.
“Even judges, cloaked with absolute civil immunity for centuries, could be punished criminally for willful deprivations of constitutional rights …” Adelman wrote in his 27-page ruling.
The defense insisted that the case was an “unjust prosecution” and that it was “riddled with doubts,” according to WISN, Milwaukee’s ABC affiliate. The prosecution was a persecution the judge’s attorneys argued. Dugan did not testify.
But the jury determined Dugan, who previously served as executive director of illegal immigrant advocate Catholic Charities, broke the law.
Brad Schimel, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Milwaukee, told Wisconsin Public Radio that Dugan’s “actions provided an opportunity for a wanted subject to flee outside that safe courthouse environment, which led to a dangerous foot chase through automobile traffic.”
“I’d like to think that she looked back on this from the get go with some regrets about what she did that day,” Schimel, Wisconsin’s former attorney general, told the publication.
The federal prosecutor told reporters following the verdict that Dugan is “not evil, nor is she a martyr” for the left’s battles with Trump over his deportation policies.
Slap on the Wrist
The federal charges were not without precedent.
In 2019, Massachusetts Judge Shelley Joseph faced criminal charges of conspiracy to obstruct justice and obstruction of justice for allegedly helping a twice-deported illegal immigrant suspected of narcotics drug crimes attempt to evade Immigration & Customs Enforcement agents. She, too, helped the illegal alien out the back door, according to the criminal complaint. Joseph was for a time suspended from the bench.
After President Trump left office, a Biden administration federal attorney dropped the charges against Joseph. Instead, Joseph would be investigated by the Massachusetts Commission on Judicial Conduct.
But the judge won’t be seeing the inside of a prison cell anytime soon. Last month the commission’s state hearing officer recommended a slap on the wrist for the judge, a public reprimand, Boston.com reported.
Dugan faces up to five years in prison on the obstruction conviction, but she is unlikely to be given that maximum penalty. Adelman, a leftist judge who has himself been publicly censured, will ultimately decide the judge’s sentence. Adelman, a Clinton nominee, penned a 2020 piece titled, “The Roberts Court’s Assault on Democracy,” attacking the conservative majority on the Supreme Court. He has been highly critical of the president and his policies.
Matt Kittle is a senior elections correspondent for The Federalist. An award-winning investigative reporter and 30-year veteran of print, broadcast, and online journalism, Kittle previously served as the executive director of Empower Wisconsin.
