The far-left Democratic judge in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, who helped an illegal alien escape her courtroom to avoid arrest by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) does not enjoy immunity from federal prosecution.
Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge Hannah Dugan, charged with two federal crimes, had argued that helping Mexican illegal, Eduardo Flores-Ruiz, escape ICE on April 18 was much ado about nothing. She was just doing her job.
But Judge Lynn Adelman of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin, appointed by President Bill Clinton, did not agree. Yesterday, he upheld a magistrate judge’s opinion that concluded Dugan’s claim didn’t hold water.
The Not-so-great Escape
Video of the action in the courthouse clearly shows Dugan helping Flores-Ruiz, a violent criminal, depart the scene. FBI, Drug Enforcement Administration, and immigration agents had gone to the courthouse to arrest the Mexican goon.
When Dugan learned about the impending arrest, she “became visibly angry, commented that the situation was ‘absurd,’ left the bench, and entered chambers,” the FBI’s criminal complaint alleges. “At the time, Flores-Ruiz was seated in the gallery of the courtroom.”
Dugan angrily confronted an ICE agent, whom she ordered out of the court. When the agent said he was there to make a lawful arrest on an administration warrant, Dugan told him he needed a “judicial warrant” and must see the circuit court’s chief judge.
Minutes later, Dugan told Flores-Ruiz and his attorney to “come with me,” and “then escorted Flores-Ruiz and his counsel out of the courtroom through the ‘jury door,’ which leads to a nonpublic area of the courthouse,” the criminal complaint says.
Dugan told the pair to exit “through a backdoor of the courtroom,” and “[a witness] saw Judge Dugan escort Flores-Ruiz’s attorney and [Flores-Ruiz] through a non-public door near the courtroom’s jury box.”
The complaint and ensuing indictment — which itself notes that Dugan told Flores-Ruiz he could appear at future hearings on “Zoom,” presumably to avoid arrest — allege that Dugan Dugan broke two laws: 18 U.S. Code 1505 and 18 U.S. Code 1071. The first crime, felony obstruction, carries a five-year stretch in prison. The second, misdemeanor concealing an individual, is punishable by one to five years in prison.
After the courtroom antics, the Wisconsin Supreme Court suspended Dugan with pay.
Dugan Appeals Magistrate Ruling
As the city’s Journal Sentinel reported, Adelman is among the most liberal federal judges in the nation. Yet he still backed the magistrate’s ruling.
Adelman wrote that Dugan’s objection to prosecution
begins with the proposition that every act alleged in the indictment is “‘part of a judge’s job.’”
In other words, they are all “official acts.” She then posits that immunity is not restricted to the civil sphere; it protects against criminal liability for most official acts.
He also cited the magistrate, who
clarified that defendant was not being prosecuted for opining on the fly, managing her courtroom, or allowing someone to appear by Zoom; rather,the indictment charged specific violations of federal criminal laws. The government concludes that defendant is not immune simply because she encountered federal agents while working at the courthouse.
Adelman agreed:
There is no basis for granting immunity simply because some of the allegations in the indictment describe conduct that could be considered “part of a judge’s job.” As the magistrate judge noted, the same is true in the bribery prosecutions, concededly valid, where the judges were prosecuted for performing official acts intertwined with bribery.
Adelman also rejected Dugan’s claims that she is immune from prosecution for the same reason President Donald Trump is. Last year, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a president cannot be prosecuted for official acts.
Another losing argument was that the charges trespass the federal Constitution’s Tenth Amendment and separation of powers.
Dugan claimed that “Congress lacks authority to punish criminally the official acts of state judges,” Adelman noted. But she cited “no authority for the proposition that federal criminal statutes of general applicability may not be applied to state court judges.”
Citing previous precedent, Adelman observed that “neither the separation of powers generally, nor the Rulemaking Clause in particular, establishes a personal immunity from prosecution or trial. The separation of powers is about the allocation of authority among the branches of the federal government.”
Thus did he rule against Dugan and for the federal prosecutors. He scheduled another hearing on the case for September 3.
“Adelman said earlier he will want to know at such a hearing if there will be an appeal. An appeal would go to the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, which covers cases from Wisconsin, Illinois and Indiana and is headquartered in Chicago,” the Journal Sentinel reported:
An appeal would freeze the process until the higher court rules, putting off a trial to 2026.
However, if Dugan’s team doesn’t appeal, a trial could be scheduled sooner, possibly later this year.
As for Flores-Ruiz, he was in Dugan’s courtroom to answer charges that he punched someone 30 times, then clobbered two women who tried to stop the beating. He still faces trial on those charges.
In June, he agreed to plead guilty to illegally entering the country after being deported, the newspaper reported.
