Last month, Hannah C. Dugan, a state judge in Wisconsin who has been accused of obstructing federal immigration agents in her courtroom, argued in a motion to dismiss the charges that she was entitled to “judicial immunity for her official acts.”
On Monday, the Justice Department responded to the motion with a sharp critique of Judge Dugan’s legal defense, affirming what it sees as the government’s broad mandate to carry out immigration arrests, even in state courthouses.
“Dugan asks this court for an unprecedented dismissal on grounds of judicial immunity, ignoring well-established law that has long permitted judges to be prosecuted for crimes they commit,” the filing said. “Combined with Dugan’s attempt to define ‘judicial acts’ expansively, such a ruling would give state court judges carte blanche to interfere with valid law enforcement actions by federal agents in public hallways of a courthouse, and perhaps even beyond.”
Judge Dugan was indicted last month on charges of concealing a person from arrest and obstruction of proceedings. In her courtroom in April, the judge steered an undocumented immigrant who was appearing before her in connection with a domestic abuse case to a separate exit from a hallway where immigration officers were waiting to arrest him, according to prosecutors.
After leaving her courtroom, the immigrant, Eduardo Flores-Ruiz, was followed by federal agents and arrested outside the courthouse. Mr. Flores-Ruiz, an immigrant from Mexico, was in the United States illegally, federal authorities have said.
In the defense’s motion to dismiss the case, Judge Dugan’s lawyers wrote that the government’s prosecution of the judge violated the Tenth Amendment, principles of federalism reflected in that amendment “and in the very structure of the United States Constitution.”
But the Justice Department said that the argument was unsupported by “any direct authority for her theories.”
“In the end, Dugan asks for this Court to develop a novel doctrine of judicial immunity from criminal prosecution, and to apply it to the facts alleged in the indictment, all without reasonable basis — directly or indirectly — in the Constitution, statutes, or case law,” the filing said.
The government also disputed Judge Dugan’s description of the behavior of the agents who were in the courthouse to arrest Mr. Flores-Ruiz. The judge’s legal team has said that the agents were disrupting Judge Dugan’s courtroom.
“The trial evidence, including video footage from the public hallways, witness accounts, and audio recordings of the events which took place inside Dugan’s courtroom, will show quite the opposite: that the ‘planned’ arrest referenced in the indictment was to occur outside the defendant’s courtroom,” the filing said, “so as not to disrupt court proceedings.”
Instead, the filing continued, “all events arose from Dugan’s unilateral, non-judicial, and unofficial actions in obstructing a federal immigration matter over which she, as a Wisconsin state judge, had no authority.”
Judge Dugan, 66, has pleaded not guilty to the charges, one felony and one misdemeanor. She is expected to face trial on July 21.
She has been supported by close to 150 federal and state judges who last month signed a letter criticizing Attorney General Pam Bondi and the Trump administration’s escalating battles with the judiciary.
Julie Bosman is the Chicago bureau chief for The Times, writing and reporting stories from around the Midwest.
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