Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Hannah Dugan was
indicted by a federal grand jury Tuesday on charges of concealing a person from arrest and obstruction of the law. Dugan — who could land up to six years in prison if convicted for allegedly helping Eduardo Flores-Ruiz, an illegal alien charged with three misdemeanor counts of battery, get away from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement — pleaded not guilty during her arraignment in federal court on Thursday.
Dugan’s attorneys appear to think that the U.S. Supreme Court has provided her with the means to dodge accountability.
They
noted in a Wednesday motion to dismiss the indictment obtained by Axios that “the government cannot prosecute Judge Dugan because she is entitled to judicial immunity for her official acts. Immunity is not a defense to the prosecution to be determined later by a jury or court; it is an absolute bar to the prosecution at the outset.”
Here, attorneys cited the Supreme Court’s July 1, 2024,
ruling in Trump v. United States, where a 6-3 majority determined that the president “may not be prosecuted for exercising his core constitutional powers, and he is entitled, at a minimum, to a presumptive immunity from prosecution for all his official acts.”
This is the ruling that prompted apoplexy among Democrats, demands for conservative justices to be impeached, and accusations that the high court was “consumed by a corruption crisis beyond its control.”
Dugan’s attorneys noted that even if “Judge Dugan took the actions the complaint alleges, these plainly were judicial acts for which she has absolute immunity from criminal prosecution,” adding that “judges are empowered to maintain control over their courtrooms specifically and the courthouse generally.”
‘Unprecedented and entirely unconstitutional.’
The apparent suggestion is that the following actions, which the
indictment accuses her of taking, were official acts:
- Confronting members of an ICE task force and “falsely telling them they needed a judicial warrant to effectuate the arrest of E.F.R.”;
- Directing all members of the task force to leave the public hallway outside her courtroom and to go to the chief judge’s office;
- Addressing the illegal alien’s criminal case off the record while ICE agents were waiting in the chief judge’s office;
- “Directing E.F.R. and his counsel to exit Courtroom 615 through a non-public jury door”; and
- Advising Flores-Ruiz’s lawyer that the illegal alien could appear by Zoom for his next court date.
In
Trump v. United States, the high court wrote:
In dividing official from unofficial conduct, courts may not inquire into the President’s motives. Such a “highly intrusive” inquiry would risk exposing even the most obvious instances of official conduct to judicial examination on the mere allegation of improper purpose.
Dugan’s attorneys further argued on the basis of this specific assertion by the high court that the Wisconsin judge’s “subjective motivations are irrelevant to immunity.”
“The government’s prosecution of Judge Dugan is virtually unprecedented and entirely unconstitutional,” wrote the attorneys. “Judge Dugan reserves her right to seek other relief, including by other motions before and at trial. But the immunity and federalism issues must be resolved swiftly because the government has no basis in law to prosecute her.”
When asked about the use of the Supreme Court’s ruling in this case, Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch, told Blaze News, “I don’t think the analogy is appropriate in this case,” adding, “the dispute is going to be whether she acted in her capacity as a judge.”
“The government’s response is going to be, ‘What you did has nothing to do with judicial decision-making, the management of your court room. You went out; you interfered with federal law enforcement; you came back in, and ushered people out of the courtroom in a way to obstruct justice that had nothing to do with your so-called management in the courtroom,’” continued Fitton. “‘This was a crime that was being committed in a courtroom, not by a judge, but by … a person acting as a citizen, not as a judge.’”
Fitton suggested further that the Trump DOJ would likely appeal a ruling in Dugan’s favor, in part due to the administration’s “seriousness about protecting their agents and the public from these illegal alien criminals” and the possible emboldening impact such a ruling might have on other activist judges.
“It doesn’t matter what line of work you are in. If you break the law, we will follow the facts, and we will prosecute you,” Attorney General Pam Bondi
said of the case last month.
Dugan,
relieved of her duties as a judge last month by the Supreme Court of Wisconsin, is next expected in court on July 9. Her trial is reportedly set for July 21.
U.S. District Judge Lynn Adelman will preside over Dugan’s case. That’s likely good news for Dugan, as the Democratic lawmaker turned Clinton appointee has
made no secret of his animus toward President Donald Trump and Republicans.
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