Judge Hannah Dugan is the Milwaukee judge who was arrested by the FBI for interfering with an attempt by ICE to arrest a criminal alien from Mexico named Eduardo Flores-Ruiz.
Judge Dugan's attorneys argued that she was immune from prosecution and that the case against her should be dismissed, but last month Judge Nancy Joseph recommended the case not be dismissed.
Joseph wrote in her recommendation that while judges have immunity from civil lawsuits seeking monetary damages when engaging in judicial acts, that does not apply to criminal charges like those in this case.
“A judge’s actions, even when done in her official capacity, does not bar criminal prosecution if the actions were done in violation of the criminal law,” Joseph wrote.
However, Judge Nancy Joseph's recommendation was not the final word. Instead, her 37-page recommendation was given over to District Judge Lynn Adelman who would make the final decision about dismissing the case. Today, he decided the case will move forward to trial.
U.S. District Judge Lynn Adelman has denied a motion to dismiss the federal charges against Milwaukee County Judge Hannah Dugan, who faces counts of allegedly obstructing federal immigration officers who came to Dugan's courtroom to arrest a man they say illegally re-entered the United States from Mexico after being deported.
Dugan is accused of helping Eduardo Flores-Ruiz, an undocumented immigrant charged with battery, elude federal immigration officers.
Dugan was indicted in May and pleaded not guilty. A trial was scheduled for July but was canceled as the motion to dismiss advanced.
Adelman scheduled a hearing for Sept. 3.
We'll know more next Wednesday, but as of today this case is going to trial. Dugan has maintained her innocence since even before she was arrested. A few days ago, police body cam video taken at her home was released. This was shot just a few days after the incident happened and before she had been arrested.
Days after being accused of helping an immigrant lacking permanent legal status evade federal immigration officials, police body camera video shows Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge Hannah Dugan denying the allegations against her.
"It's all lies," Dugan told officers.
Police were called to Dugan's home to address an unrelated threat. Reporting at the time said Dugan was then under investigation by the FBI for the actions she took inside her courtroom, a claim that she denied. Three days later, FBI agents arrested Dugan inside the Milwaukee County Courthouse.
Basically she got talking with the officers and started discussing the incident in her courtroom. Here's a bit of her denial.
She's wrong when she says the FBI was not there. There were two FBI agents who were part of the arrest team. She's also minimizing her use of a back door which is not usually used by defendants.
The big problem with her version of events is that there were other witnesses in the room who saw what happened. As I described here, prosecutors claim that Judge Dugan knew she was exceeding her authority and said so.
Prosecutors allege Milwaukee County Judge Hannah Dugan said in April that she would take "the heat" for her actions before she directed an undocumented immigrant — wanted for arrest — out a side door typically used by jurors in her courtroom...
"The evidence will show that her actions included … stating she would take 'the heat' for her actions, and then physically escorting E.F.R. and his attorney into a non-public hallway with access to a stairwell that led to a courthouse exit," the prosecutors wrote in the 30-page filing.
This comment prosecutors say Dugan made could be important in a trial as they seek to prove that Dugan exceeded her authority as a judge — and knew she was doing it.
At this point the only thing likely to keep Judge Dugan from losing her job and possibly even going to jail herself is that the defense is probably going to politicize this as much as possible and hope that there is a juror who wants to strike a pose against the Trump administration regardless of the facts of the case. At least that's my best guess how this is going to go.
Could there be a plea deal at this point? Now that a dismissal seems to be off the table, maybe she'd consider some sort of slap on the wrist admission of error and promise not to do it again. That's probably her best option moving forward because the facts of the case do not seem to be on her side.
