MILWAUKEE (CN) - A federal Wisconsin magistrate judge recommended on Monday that the court deny Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge Hannah Dugan's motion to dismiss the obstruction charges brought against her.
"Whether Dugan violated these statutes as the government accuses, or whether she was merely performing her judicial duties as Dugan asserts, these are questions for a jury that cannot be resolved on a motion to dismiss," U.S. Magistrate Judge Nancy Joseph wrote in a 37-page ruling.
U.S. District Judge Lynn Adelman, a Bill Clinton appointee, will take Joseph's recommendation under advisement and issue a final decision on the motion sometime in the coming weeks. In federal court, magistrate judges handle a range of preliminary matters but do not make final rulings on dispositive motions.
Dugan, 66, was arrested by FBI agents in April at the county courthouse while on her way to work before being shackled and transported to the federal courthouse for an initial appearance.
She was later indicted on charges of obstruction and intentionally concealing an individual set for deportation, both felonies. The government claims she helped Eduardo Florez-Ruiz, who had been accused of living in the country illegally for 25 years, evade ICE agents waiting outside her courtroom by leading him out a private side door.
In a motion to dismiss, Dugan claimed judicial immunity, citing its long history since the inception of the U.S., and the many tests to that commitment. She said the federal government had no constitutional rights for her to take away.
The government countered in its response to Dugan's motion that Dugan's acts were extrajudicial and that - while judges may have immunity from civil suits for monetary damages - judicial immunity does not apply in criminal cases at all.
Joseph agreed. "There is no firmly established absolute judicial immunity barring criminal prosecution of judges for judicial acts," she wrote.
The judge filed a motion to dismiss on May 14, and pleaded not guilty to the charges the very next day. Dugan is represented by a team of lawyers led by former U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Wisconsin Steven Biskupic.
She argued in the 37-page motion that Dugan's actions on April 18 were judicial acts well within her right to keep control of the courtroom, and her prosecution is barred by judicial immunity and the 10th Amendment.
"One morning, plainclothes federal agents with badges and baseball caps on a bench outside a state courtroom decided how they wanted a judge to control that courtroom and the people in and near it," Dugan said in the opening paragraphs of the motion. "For not doing as they wished, the judge faces federal criminal charges."
While Joseph conceded that, as a judge, Dugan has authority to conduct judicial proceedings in her own courtroom as she sees fit, the magistrate judge also said that authority does not shield Dugan from the "corruption" accusations.
"In my view, this is consistent with the cases where judges were prosecuted for performing official acts that were intertwined with bribery or extortion - even where judges are acting in their official role, when the judicial acts violate criminal law, judicial immunity does not bar prosecution," Joseph wrote.
In her argument, Dugan also referenced the 2024 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Trump v. United States, which found that a former president is entitled to at least presumptive, if not absolute, immunity from prosecution for all official acts. It left up to lower courts the difficult work of deciding what counts as an "official act."
"The indictment includes no hint of self-dealing," Dugan said. "It includes no hint of bribery, extortion, kickbacks, tax evasion, stealing, harassment, sexual assault, or other extrajudicial misconduct. In sum, nothing in this indictment sounds a claim of anything like the unofficial acts that have sent state judges to face trial on federal criminal charges."
The argument here is that Trump relied heavily on Pierson, which relied on Spalding, which concluded that civil executive immunity should apply the same as civil judicial immunity for actions taken within the course of their judicial duties.
But Joseph said there was no reason to assume Trump extended Fitzgerald and Spalding, writing, while Dugan asserts that Trump simply extended to the president the same immunity from prosecution that judges already have, this argument makes a leap too far. Trump says nothing about criminal immunity for judicial acts."
Though Dugan takes the indictment at face value in the motion, she contends that not all claims in the indictment are accurate. Joseph also noted that her Monday ruling does not tackle the merits of the claims, and emphasized that Dugan remains presumed innocent.
On June 18, Adelman took the July 21 trial date off the calendar pending the conclusion of the motion to dismiss, foreseeing that the decision was likely to be appealed. Outside of the courthouse, Dugan's attorney Jason Luczak suggested then to reporters that the government was speeding the case along to make an example of Dugan.
Luczak also hinted that trial evidence will show Dugan did not lead Flores-Ruiz through a private door so that he could escape: "The case is very different from how the public thinks of it right now."
The evidence that Luczak is likely referring to is a video that was obtained by WISN through an open records request showing the hallway outside of Dugan's courtroom.
The video shows Dugan in her black robe confronting the officers, leading them to the chief judge's office at the end of the hall and then re-entering her courtroom. Moments later, Flores-Ruiz and his attorney can be seen exiting the courtroom into the same public hallway and walking toward the public elevators.
Several ICE officers in plainclothes follow the pair to the elevator and get into it with them, conflicting with the series of events laid out in the government's complaint, which claims that officers engaged in a foot chase and eventually detained Flores-Ruiz outside of the courthouse.
Source: Courthouse News Service
