Dugan, 66, showed no emotion as the verdict was read.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe case is a long way from over,\u201d Biskupic said.<\/p>\n
Biskupic said the team would be filing a motion asking Adelman to set aside the conviction, especially based on the split verdict. No sentencing hearing was set.<\/p>\n
The jury foreperson, who did not provide his name, was asked how he was doing and said, “I am not feeling too good.”<\/p>\n
“I will say the jury followed [Judge] Adelman’s instructions faithfully,” the foreperson said.<\/p>\n
Other jurors declined to speak to the media.<\/p>\n
Schimel urged people to \u201ckeep this case in proper perspective.\u201d\u201cSome have sought to make this about a larger political battle. While this case is serious for all involved, it is ultimately about a single day \u2013 a single day \u2013 in a public courthouse,\u201d Schimel said.<\/p>\n
Schimel also said courthouses are the safest place to make arrests, and it was safer than a traffic stop. He also said it appeared clear from Chief Judge Carl Ashley\u2019s draft policy on courthouse ICE arrests that there was little that court officials could do to stop them.\u201cThe defendant\u2019s actions provided an opportunity for a wanted subject to flee outside of that secure courthouse environment,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Before the trial, the government\u00a0made a plea offer\u00a0to Dugan, but no deal was struck. Details were not provided.<\/p>\n
During their six hours of deliberations, the jury had three questions: one about ICE regulations and who needed to be told when agents were making an arrest. The next two were if Dugan needed to know who was being arrested. The answer Adelman sent back was different to the similar questions.<\/p>\n
The jury was drawn from 12 counties that make up the Eastern District of Wisconsin, from Sheboygan to Kenosha and to the western border of Waukesha County.<\/p>\n
The government brought in 19 witnesses, ranging from federal agents to a\u00a0fellow judge. The defense called two fellow judges, a public defender and former Mayor Tom Barrett, a longtime friend. Dugan herself\u00a0did not take the stand.<\/p>\n
The case against\u00a0Dugan\u00a0was factually simple and could be legally monumental. This is the first time a state judge has gone to trial on charges of obstructing immigration agents.<\/p>\n
The case has become a bellwether in the clash between the judiciary and the Trump administration as it executes a sweeping immigration crackdown nationwide.<\/p>\n
Case began with an ordinary day in state court<\/h2>\n
On April 18, Dugan was presiding over a misdemeanor court on the sixth floor of the Milwaukee County Courthouse.<\/p>\n
Tensions were high among county judges as federal immigration officers had earlier arrested two people suspected of being in the country illegally.<\/p>\n
Federal agents were there to arrest\u00a0Eduardo Flores-Ruiz, 31, charged with battery and appearing before Dugan. Flores-Ruiz illegally re-entered the U.S. in 2013.<\/p>\n
Dugan learned of the planned arrest from her clerk. She went to the main corridor with another judge, questioned the agents, and directed them to the chief judge’s office, who was working\u00a0on a plan on how such arrests were to be treated.<\/p>\n
Dugan returned to her courtroom, moved Flores-Ruiz’s case up first and then directed Flores-Ruiz and his attorney\u00a0through a non-public door and into a hallway\u00a0used by judges and staff, witnesses testified.<\/p>\n
Flores-Ruiz and his attorney emerged into the public corridor. Federal agents followed them. He was arrested outside the courthouse after a brief foot chase.<\/p>\n
A week later,\u00a0FBI agents arrested Dugan, leading her out of the Milwaukee County Courthouse in handcuffs. Flores-Ruiz has since been deported.<\/p>\n
Prosecutors focused on five acts, avoided politics<\/h2>\n
The sides largely agreed on the basic facts of what happened. The question centered on Dugan’s intent.<\/p>\n
Federal prosecutors used\u00a0the indictment\u00a0as a roadmap for their case, highlighting things they said Dugan did that were unusual, even in a busy courtroom.<\/p>\n
They also used video of Dugan’s interaction with the agents and audio from inside the courtroom to paint a picture of a judge bent on defying the ICE agents.<\/p>\n
Dugan’s court reporter offered to walk out the pair but Dugan says she’ll do it. “I’ll get the heat.”<\/p>\n
Judge Kristela Cervera was a key witness, testifying that she was reluctant to go in the hallway with Dugan and she was shocked to learn the allegations against Dugan.<\/p>\n
“Judges should not be helping defendants evade arrest,\u201d Cervera testified.<\/p>\n
On cross-examination, Cervera admitted she texted her sister, a lawyer, after the incident to warn her that ICE agents were in the building.\u00a0Defense attorneys said she helped the government in order to save herself. The government downplayed the text to her sister.<\/p>\n
Defense questions the details<\/h2>\n
President Trump’s name came up just a couple of times in the trial, but his stepped-up immigration enforcement was a theme throughout the defense strategy.<\/p>\n
Dugan’s attorneys said the Trump administration was trying to make an example out of Dugan to “crush” her.<\/p>\n
They described Dugan as an earnest public servant trying to follow\u00a0guidance on how to handle such arrests, not trying to obstruct agents.<\/p>\n
Several of the actions the government called criminal are things that happen every day in the bustling state court, her attorneys argued.<\/p>\n
Dugan’s team tried to\u00a0get the case tossed out, arguing that as a judge, she was immune from prosecution. U.S. District Judge Lynn Adelman\u00a0denied their motion, though the team preserved its ability to make that argument later.<\/p>\n
Reporter Hope Karnopp contributed to this article.<\/em><\/p>\n (This story was updated to add new information.)<\/em><\/p>\n This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:\u00a0Milwaukee County Judge Hannah Dugan found guilty of felony obstruction<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Milwaukee County Judge Hannah Dugan was found guilty of a felony count of obstructing federal agents seeking to<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":2413,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,7,48],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2412","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-crime","category-news","category-us"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2412","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2412"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2412\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2414,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2412\/revisions\/2414"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2413"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2412"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2412"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2412"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}