A lawyer for Hannah C. Dugan, a Milwaukee judge who is accused of helping an undocumented immigrant evade arrest, made a final appeal to the jury on Thursday in her trial, arguing that she was the victim of an overzealous prosecution.
“They’re trying to besmirch her reputation, her honest reputation, her hard work, and amount her to a few minutes of a decision that she made under the confusion of the situation that she was in,” said the lawyer, Jason Luczak, in his closing argument at her federal trial.
Judge Dugan faces up to six years in prison if convicted of obstructing federal immigration agents in April after they arrived at the Milwaukee County Courthouse to arrest an undocumented immigrant, Eduardo Flores-Ruiz, who had appeared in court on a misdemeanor battery charge.
Kelly Brown Watzka, a prosecutor, told jurors that Judge Dugan had let her views on immigration policy drive her actions. “No judge may decide that her personal beliefs matter more than the law itself,” she said.
The prosecution by the Trump administration is widely seen as an effort to send a message to judges who interfere with the president’s deportation efforts.
Here are four takeaways from the weeklong trial:
Tensions were high over immigration arrests in a county courthouse.
Weeks after President Trump was sworn in to a second term, judges in the Milwaukee County Courthouse noticed what appeared to be a change in policy: Immigration agents were making arrests at the courthouse.
In emails, judges shared concerns about the arrests, which occurred in March and April. They worried that the presence of immigration agents could deter defendants from showing up to hearings. They pressed the chief judge of the courthouse, Carl Ashley, to develop guidelines for how agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement could operate in the building.
“I had great concerns about whether or not they could interfere with our state functions,” Judge Ashley said in testimony.
Federal agents’ plan to arrest Flores-Ruiz quickly went awry.
A team of six federal agents who arrived at the courthouse on April 18 had an administrative warrant for Mr. Flores-Ruiz’s arrest, issued after they produced evidence that he had been deported in 2013 and returned to the United States illegally.
The agents planned to wait outside Judge Dugan’s courtroom on the sixth floor and arrest Mr. Flores-Ruiz in a public hallway.
That plan was disrupted almost as soon as the team arrived. Though the agents wore plainclothes — sweatshirts, baseball caps and jeans — they stood out as they sat in the courthouse hallway. A public defender stopped to snap cellphone pictures of them, and a court clerk told the judge about their presence.
Judge Dugan corralled another judge, Kristela L. Cervera, and the two went into the hallway to question the agents. Judge Dugan instructed them to go to the chief judge’s office down the hallway.
While several agents were in the chief judge’s office, Judge Dugan adjourned Mr. Flores-Ruiz’s case and ushered him and his lawyer through a side door. Two agents followed and arrested him on the street after a brief foot chase.
The testimony offered a glimpse into the workplace dynamics of a courthouse.
The Milwaukee County Courthouse was, in some respects, like any other office.
Witnesses described being irked by the behavior of co-workers. Judge Cervera, who was junior to Judge Dugan in age and experience, testified that it was “embarrassing” when Judge Dugan entered her courtroom and motioned with a finger that Judge Cervera should follow her into the public hallway, and then pressured her into keeping her judicial robe on while she questioned ICE agents, even though it was unusual to wear it outside of the courtroom.
Whispered conversations that were recorded in Judge Dugan’s courtroom were dissected in the trial. Joan Butz, a court reporter, testified that she had volunteered to help guide Mr. Flores-Ruiz and his lawyer down a hallway that could have helped them avoid immigration agents.
But some of the chatter recorded in Judge Dugan’s courtroom didn’t mean much, Ms. Butz suggested.
“That was just bubbler talk,” she said at one point in her testimony, using Milwaukee slang for a water fountain.
Judge Dugan’s defense leaned on one well-known character witness.
He may not be a household name outside of Wisconsin, but Tom Barrett, the former longtime mayor of Milwaukee, got the jury’s attention when he took the stand as the final witness for the defense on Thursday morning.
Mr. Barrett’s testimony, watched intently by jurors who leaned forward in their seats, only lasted a few minutes. He told the jury that he had known Judge Dugan since she was 11 or 12 years old.
“I think she is extremely honest,” said Mr. Barrett, a Democrat. “And I think she will tell you exactly how she feels.”
After Mr. Barrett left the stand, a lawyer for Judge Dugan said that she would be not be testifying in her own defense.
The jury began deliberating on Thursday afternoon.
Julie Bosman is the Chicago bureau chief for The Times, writing and reporting stories from around the Midwest.
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