A jury has found a Wisconsin judge accused of helping a Mexican immigrant dodge federal authorities guilty of obstruction, in a closely watched case that brought Donald Trump’s anti-immigration agenda into the spotlight.
Federal prosecutors had charged Milwaukee county circuit judge Hannah Dugan with obstruction, a felony and concealing an individual to prevent arrest, a misdemeanor, in April, in an unusual case amid Trump’s immigration crackdown in the US president’s second term.
The jury in Milwaukee deliberated for six hours and then late on Thursday acquitted Dugan on the concealment count but convicted her on the obstruction charge. She now faces up to five years in prison, although a date has not yet been set for her sentencing and she is expected to appeal.
The Trump administration had called Dugan an “activist judge”, while Democrats said the administration was trying to make an example of Dugan as a way of blunting opposition by many judges across the country to the White House’s multi-pronged anti-immigration agenda.
Steve Biskupic, Dugan’s lead attorney, on Thursday told reporters that he was disappointed with the verdict and that he did not understand how the jury could have reached a split verdict since the elements of both charges were virtually the same.
US attorney Brad Schimel, for the government, denied the case was political and urged people to accept the verdict peacefully.
Dugan was arrested in April by the FBI, which accused her of obstruction after it said she helped a man evade US immigration authorities as they were seeking to arrest him at her courthouse.
Kash Patel, the FBI director, wrote on X at the time: “We believe Judge Dugan intentionally misdirected federal agents away from the subject to be arrested in her courthouse, Eduardo Flores Ruiz, allowing the subject – an illegal alien – to evade arrest.”
Last month, Flores Ruiz was sentenced to time served for entering the US illegally, and later deported.
On Thursday, Schimel said that arresting people like Ruiz at a courthouse was safer because people are screened for weapons and it is not unfair practice. However, it is highly unusual and has been widely condemned by critics of the Trump administration’s approach.
“Some have sought to make this about a larger political battle,” Schimel said. “While this case is serious for all involved, it is ultimately about a single day, a single bad day, in a public courthouse. The defendant is certainly not evil. Nor is she a martyr for some greater cause.”
According to court filings that include an FBI affidavit and a federal grand jury indictment, when Dugan saw last spring that agents were in the corridor outside her courtroom waiting for Flores Ruiz, she left the courtroom to confront them, falsely telling them their administrative warrant was not sufficient grounds to arrest him and directing them to go to the chief judge’s office.
While the agents were gone, she addressed Flores Ruiz’s case off the record, told his attorney that he could attend his next hearing via Zoom and led Flores Ruiz and the attorney out through a private jury door. Agents spotted Flores Ruiz in the corridor, followed him outside and arrested him after a foot chase. Both he and Dugan were later arrested.
At trial, prosecutors played audio recordings from Dugan’s courtroom in which she can be heard telling her court reporter that she would take “the heat” for leading Flores Ruiz out the back.
Dugan’s attorneys countered that she was trying to follow courthouse protocols that called for court employees to report any immigration agents to their supervisors and she did not intentionally try to obstruct the arrest team.
Her defense attorney told the jury in closing arguments that the “top levels of government” were involved in bringing charges against Dugan. But prosecutors argued Dugan put her personal beliefs above the law. Dugan did not testify.
A coalition of 13 advocacy groups, including Common Cause Wisconsin and the League of Women Voters Wisconsin, said: “Higher courts must carefully review the serious constitutional questions this case raises about due process, judicial authority, and federal overreach.”
Dugan was suspended as a judge after she was charged and the Wisconsin constitution bars convicted felons from holding office. The Wisconsin judicial commission, which oversees disciplining of judges in the state, did not respond to a request on Friday from the Associated Press for information about what happens next in Dugan’s case.
On Friday Wisconsin Republicans threatened to impeach Dugan if she did not resign.
The state assembly speaker, Robin Vos, and the majority leader, Tyler August, both Republicans, made the threat, citing a legal opinion issued by then-attorney general Bronson La Follette in 1976 that a state senator lost his seat the moment he was convicted of a felony.
The Associated Press contributed reporting
