The trial of Judge Hannah C. Dugan in Milwaukee began on Monday with prosecutors painting her as an official who stepped outside the law, a judge who was furious about immigration arrests taking place in the county courthouse under the Trump administration and decided to do something about it.
“She is on trial today because those strongly held views motivated her to make a decision to cross the line,” Keith Alexander, an assistant U.S. attorney, said. The prosecutor said that Judge Dugan had even told a court reporter she would “take the heat” for steering an illegal immigrant out a side door in her courtroom in April as federal agents were hoping to arrest him.
Judge Dugan’s lawyers described her differently, arguing that she was trying to do the right thing while protocols and national politics shifted all around her. Earlier this year, at the start of a second Trump term, immigration agents began making arrests inside the Milwaukee County Courthouse, alarming judges who worked there. Some judges asked the chief judge, Carl Ashley, to set a policy relating to such arrests, and Judge Dugan’s actions followed, defense lawyers said.
“There was no corrupt intent,” said Steven Biskupic, a lawyer for Judge Dugan, adding that, according to a draft policy from the chief judge, court personnel were asked to refer immigration agents in the courthouse to their supervisor. “She’s struggling to follow the chief judge’s policy.”
The trial is expected to last throughout the week in a large wood-paneled courtroom in the federal courthouse in downtown Milwaukee. On Monday, jurors listened intently as lawyers argued about what had transpired in Judge Dugan’s courtroom at the Milwaukee County Courthouse, only a mile away, where she heard a steady stream of misdemeanor cases.
The jury of eight men and five women, including one alternate, heard audio recordings from Judge Dugan’s courtroom from that April morning. They captured casual banter and whispered conversations between court employees, interspersed with curt instructions from the judge, who was working through a calendar of dozens of cases before leaving to attend Good Friday services in the afternoon.
Jurors also watched video footage from the County Courthouse corridors, including clips of six plainclothes federal agents waiting for Eduardo Flores-Ruiz, the man they were there to arrest, to emerge from his hearing in Judge Dugan’s courtroom.
Prosecutors presented evidence on Monday that Judge Dugan had asked federal agents to report to the chief judge’s office, then discussed with a court employee whether Mr. Flores-Ruiz could leave “down the stairs.” A side door of the courtroom, used by judges and court staff, opens to a hallway with two exits: a door that opens into the public corridor and a stairwell that leads to lower floors.
“‘I’ll do it,’” the prosecutor quoted Judge Dugan as saying. “‘I’ll get the heat.’”
After a hearing was held for Mr. Flores-Ruiz, who was facing domestic battery charges, he was guided through the side door of the courtroom and then emerged with his lawyer into the public corridor, where the agents had been waiting.
Mr. Biskupic, the judge’s defense lawyer, stressed that Mr. Flores-Ruiz and his lawyer had exited into the public corridor, not down the stairwell. “They go straight out into the hallway, where there’s a federal agent to the left and a federal agent to the right,” Mr. Biskupic said.
The door from which Mr. Flores-Ruiz emerged was less than 12 feet from the main door to Judge Dugan’s courtroom, Mr. Biskupic said. He pointed out that a federal agent had spotted Mr. Flores-Ruiz and had followed him down an elevator to the street, where he was arrested after a brief chase.
It is uncertain whether Judge Dugan, who faces up to six years in prison if convicted, will testify in her defense. She was charged with obstructing a proceeding of a federal agency and with concealing an individual to prevent his discovery and arrest.
Mr. Flores-Ruiz, an undocumented immigrant from Mexico, agreed to plead guilty to entering the United States illegally after having been removed from the country in 2013. He was deported to Mexico in November.
Julie Bosman is the Chicago bureau chief for The Times, writing and reporting stories from around the Midwest.
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