Judge Hannah Dugan trial; Federal Judge Lynn Adelman overseeing case
Federal Judge Lynn Adelman overseeing Dugan trial
The case against Milwaukee County Judge Hannah Dugan kicks off with jury selection on Thursday, Dec. 11. She is accused of helping an undocumented immigrant evade ICE inside the courthouse. Another judge will oversee the case – Federal Judge Lynn Adelman.
MILWAUKEE - The case against Milwaukee County Judge Hannah Dugan kicks off with jury selection on Thursday, Dec. 11. She is accused of helping an undocumented immigrant evade ICE inside the courthouse. Federal Judge Lynn Adelman will oversee the case.
About Judge Lynn Adelman
What we know:
Adelman was once a Democratic state lawmaker. President Bill Clinton appointed him to be a federal judge.
Federal Judge Lynn Adelman
Federal Judge Adelman sided with the Trump Administration in allowing the case against Dugan to move forward. But in 2020, he wrote a Harvard law review article critical of the U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice. In that article titled "The Roberts Court’s Assault on Democracy," Adelman accused Chief Justice John Roberts of "a masterpiece of disingenuousness." He also mentioned President Trump's "temperament is that of an autocrat." The Judicial Council of the Seventh Judicial Circuit formally admonished him for the article.
"The opening two sentences could reasonably be understood by the public as an attack on the integrity of the Chief Justice rather than disagreement with his votes and opinions in controversial cases," the ethics panel wrote. "The attacks on Republican party positions could be interpreted, as the complainants have, as calling into question Judge Adelman’s impartiality in matters implicating partisan or ideological concerns."
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Adelman is 86 years old and a graduate of Shorewood High School. Adelman's senior yearbook shows he was on the basketball team, in the band, played golf, and captained the football team. Adelman went on to Ivy League schools: Princeton for college, and Columbia for Law School.
Adelman then ran and lost a run for Congress in 1974, with campaign manager Mordecai Lee.
"I think it’s reasonable to say he’s a civil libertarian in terms of where his sympathies are," said Mordecai Lee, UWM Professor Emeritus.
The two went on to serve together in the Wisconsin Senate, both as Democrats, but that didn't mean they didn't disagree.
What they're saying:
"We would fight tooth and nail over the substance of public policy," Lee said. "In other words, when there were issues that came up, let's say the rights of somebody who's accused, he would tilt to the civil liberties side and I tilted it to the conservative, law-and-order side. And also when it came to issues of suburbs versus city, those were the years of sewer wars. He was for protecting the suburbs from MMSD, the sewage district. I was for strengthening MMSD against the suburbs, and so we really were constantly at battle on issues of substance, not on personal issues."
Mordecai Lee
Republican Scott Kelly worked as a paid intern for then-State Sen. Adelman.
"He was very much a civil libertarian, I’d say. It kind of drove everything he did," Kelly said. "He was a very liberal Democrat; there’s no sugar-coating that. It’s how I realized I was a Republican."
Federal judgeship
Dig deeper:
Adelman then applied to be a federal judge. Republicans wrote him letters of recommendation, hoping they would be able to flip his seat if he left.
"There were people in the Republican Senate caucus who said: ‘We’re going to regret this over time. This is a lifetime appointment,’" Kelly said.
Scott Kelly
In 1997, President Clinton appointed Adelman to the federal bench. The U.S. Senate confirmed him.
He has served nearly 30 years on the bench.
One important ruling was in 2014, when he sided against the Republican-passed voter ID law. The federal appeals court overruled his ruling.
In 2022, he tossed a case challenging ballot access for Republicans Sen. Ron Johnson and Reps. Tom Tiffany and Scott Fitzgerald.
In 2025, he allowed the case against Dugan to proceed, writing that the federal government had the better of the arguments.
The trial ahead
What's next:
Cameras are not normally allowed in federal courtrooms. But back in 2022, Judge Lynn Adelman let us in to record a swearing in of then-Ambassador Tom Barrett. Now, Adelman will oversee the criminal case against Judge Dugan.
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"He was very good on paying attention to every single word, because in law, there can be a huge difference between, let's say the word 'may' versus the word ‘shall.’ May and shall are the opposites of each other," Lee said. "So whenever I worked with Lynn, either against his amendments to bill, or with him in favor of amendments that we both agreed with, he was very careful in terms of drafting and reading the law very slowly and trying to be sure that there's no way that the wording of the law could be misinterpreted."
A jury will decide if Dugan is guilty or not guilty.
The Source: Information in this post was produced by FOX6 News.