In a vanishingly rare instance of justice from a court system dominated by progressive activists, a Milwaukee County jury has found a Wisconsin judge guilty of helping a violent illegal immigrant evade ICE officers.
Last April, Judge Hannah Dugan, determined to obstruct ICE officers from lawfully detaining illegal alien Eduardo Flores-Ruiz, a defendant appearing before her on criminal battery charges, spirited him out of her courtroom by a private entrance so he could evade arrest.
Feds caught up with Flores-Ruiz about a block from the courthouse. Not long after, the FBI arrested Dugan for felony obstruction. More important, she lost her judgeship.
Dugan’s crime immediately made her a Democrat hero. They also declared her arrest a constitutional crisis – an extreme measure strictly reserved for days ending in Y. According to Hunter Biden’s lawyer, Abbe Lowell, prosecuting Dugan is “this administration …signaling its alarming willingness to coerce state courts into executing its federal immigration agenda – an unacceptable assault on federalism.”
This faux concern for “federalism” is shameless. The supporting pillar of federalism is the Constitution’s “’Supremacy Clause,’ making federal law ‘the supreme Law of the Land’ notwithstanding any state law to the contrary.” But, in Democrats’ campaign to make immigration laws unenforceable their primary weapons have been asserting Confederacy-era claims of “state’s rights”; forbidding local law enforcement to cooperate with immigration officials; and declaring blue cities and states “sanctuaries” from federal law. Each one a deadly attack on federalism.
Before trial Dugan’s lawyers, with help from the media and Democrats, did their best to paint the case as an attack on “judicial independence,” as if separation of powers protects judicial law-breaking. But what really hurt Dugan was the testimony of Judge Kristela Cervera, a colleague Dugan dragooned into her stunt. Cervera testified she was “shocked” by Dugan’s conduct, and, “Judges shouldn’t help criminal defendants evade arrest.”
Imagine that.
Dugan’s guilty verdict wasn’t the administration’s revenge because she “stood up to Trump.” It turns out her jury was drawn from a district so progressive that, prior to trial, veteran attorney Jonathan Turley was anticipating “jury nullification” would guarantee Dugan’s acquittal, evidence of guilt notwithstanding. Adding to Turley’s expectation was the history of radical activism by the presiding judge, Lynn Adelman, who frequently substitutes his superior moral judgment for the rule of law.
But the jury did their job.
Last April, Eduardo Flores-Ruiz was a defendant in Dugan’s courtroom on three counts of domestic battery. According to the charging document, Flores-Ruiz became so furious that his roommate texted him about his loud music he punched him “in the face and body 30 times.” When the roommate’s girlfriend tried to intervene, Flores-Ruiz punched her in the head and arm until she fell down, after which he resumed strangling his roommate “while punching [him] with his off-hand.” After a cousin managed to separate them, Flores-Ruiz threatened the roommate “he would really show him what he was about the following day.”
This sweetheart is a Mexican citizen, deported in 2013 pursuant to an “expedited order of removal” that makes it a felony if he reentered. Should he do so, as he did, and as attorney Jonathan Turley explains, the 2013 order subjects him to immediate deportation “without any further court hearing.” He’d used up his due process.
When ICE showed up at the courthouse with a warrant for Flores-Ruiz they were fully authorized to arrest him. They gave prior notice to the court administrator when they’d be there and why, showed their credentials to Dugan’s court deputy, agreed they’d take custody of Flores-Ruiz when he exited his hearing, then waited in the public hallway for their man to come out. They never set foot in Dugan’s courtroom.
According to trial testimony, when Dugan learned ICE agents were outside her courtroom, she became, “visibly upset” and “angry”(read, “unhinged”). An apparent victim of Trump derangement syndrome, she harbored the same irrational hatred for ICE that’s driving progressive mobs to assault agents on the street, dox them and their families, ram their vehicles, try to run them down, and shoot at them. (All reasons why immigration officers prefer arresting detainees in secure locations like police stations, jails, and courthouses.)
The enraged Dugan stormed out to the hallway to confront the agents. First, she lied to them that their warrant wasn’t sufficient, then lied that they had to report to the chief judge’s office before they could do anything. The agents knew better, but, seeing Dugan couldn’t be reasoned with, respectfully complied. They could arrest Flores-Ruiz when he came outside.
Dugan then returned to her courtroom, moved Flores-Ruiz’s case to the top of her docket, adjourned his hearing, and told him he could appear next time by Zoom. All this cheated Flores-Ruiz’s battered victims, who were present, out of their day in court. Then Dugan led Flores-Ruiz and his attorney to a non-public doorway, so they could leave the building without agents spotting them.
As a first-time offender with a progressive judge, Dugan probably won’t face the maximum five-year sentence. It doesn’t matter. What’s important is that someone so clearly unfit to be a judge is off the bench for good.
Terry O’Connell looks at the world from Dearborn. You can email him at trclancy@yahoo.com.
