Judge to decide next step in Dugan case

Listen to this article

The next step in Milwaukee County Judge Hannah Dugan‘s case is up to U.S. District Judge Lynn Adelman.

Dugan was indicted on May 13 on charges she obstructed a federal agency and helped an undocumented immigrant escape federal agents from trying to arrest him at the Milwaukee County Courthouse on April 18.

Federal prosecutors filed their response Tuesday to a July 7 report by U.S. Magistrate Judge Nancy Joseph who rejected Dugan’s argument that the charges be dismissed. Adelman is not bound by Joseph’s recommendation and has not announced when he plans to issue his verdict on whether the case against Dugan moves forward or is dismissed.

In their argument to move the case forward, federal prosecutors wrote “Dugan is simply attempting to explain away the historical prosecution of judges in a gerrymandered way, that even relies on amorphous and contestable distinctions to carve her case out.”

Dugan’s attorneys argued in their response to Joseph’s report that “this is a federal criminal prosecution of a state judge for doing her job, not in the way some federal agents preferred, true, but her job all the same.”

On April 18, stepped outside her courtroom to talk to agents looking to arrest Eduardo Flores-Ruiz, an undocumented immigrant. When she re-entered the courtroom, she showed Flores-Ruiz another way to leave the courtroom. He was later arrested outside the courthouse.

FBI agents arrested Dugan at the courthouse the following week. Dugan pleaded not guilty to the felony and misdemeanor charges. If convicted, she could face up to six years in prison.

Dugan’s attorneys argue her prosecution violates the 10^th Amendment and is federal overreach. They further wrote Dugan and other judges have immunity for official acts in their courtroom.

Prosecutors countered that Dugan’s judicial immunity argument is flawed and not supported by legal precedent.

“All the events arose from Dugan’s unilateral, non-judicial and unofficial actions outside the role of a Wisconsin state judge by obstructing a federal immigration matter over which she had no authority,” prosecutors wrote in their motion.