Milwaukee County Judge Dugan headed to trial, dismiss motion denied

MILWAUKEE - Milwaukee County Judge Hannah Dugan, accused of helping a man evade federal immigration agents at the courthouse earlier this year, will go to trial.

Judge's decision

In Court:

Dugan's legal team asked a federal judge to throw out the case in May. On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Lynn Adelman sided with the federal government, saying history revealed the government has the better argument.

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The case was supposed to go to trial in July, but the federal judge postponed it because he wanted time to weigh Dugan's motion to dismiss.

What's next:

Dugan’s legal team would not say whether it plans to appeal Tuesday's ruling. Her laywers said they're disappointed by the ruling, but they look forward to the trial. No trial date has been set. 

Federal indictment

The backstory:

A federal grand jury indicted Dugan, and she pleaded not guilty, in May.

The grand jury's two-count indictment accuses Dugan of helping undocumented 29-year-old Eduardo Flores-Ruiz evade federal agents, who were at the Milwaukee County Courthouse to arrest him. It also states Dugan obstructed those agents in the process.

Flores-Ruiz was in Dugan's courtroom for a misdemeanor battery case on April 18. Prosecutors said Dugan told federal agents to go to the chief judge's office down the hall, and is then accused of telling Flores-Ruiz and his attorney to leave her courtroom out a back door as federal agents waited outside the courtroom to arrest him.

Agents later arrested Flores-Ruiz outside the courthouse after a brief foot chase.

The Wisconsin Supreme Court suspended the Milwaukee County Circuit Court judge, saying it is in the public interest to temporarily relieve her of her duties as she faces federal charges.

Police video

What they're saying:

Dugan said she did not know Flores-Ruiz's immigration status. Days before federal agents arrested her in April, she called police about another issue. She talked about the immigration case in a conversation captured on an officer's body-worn camera video.

"A couple taxpayers are mad that I hid this guy in the jury room. I didn’t. I didn’t do anything that they are saying," Dugan said in the police video. "What I’m worried about is just the wackos that will believe this story, which is not true. I am not being investigated by the feds. The FBI was not there. ICE was there."

The federal complaint against Dugan said FBI and ICE agents were outside her courtroom. They said they planned to arrest Eduardo Flores-Ruiz, who was in state court for charges of domestic abuse. Federal prosecutors said she brought him through a non-public jury door.

"I did not hide this migrant in the jury room or in my chambers. I had him leave out the back door, which I do when the circumstances warrant it," Dugan said. "These are the circumstances that warrant it: I had a room of 30 people, and I just sent him out the door with the public defender."

Motion to dismiss

Dig deeper:

A day after Dugan was indicted, her attorneys filed a motion to dismiss the case – claiming she has judicial immunity and the prosecution violates the 10th Amendment.

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Dugan's defense argued that judicial immunity means she's protected from prosecution for her official actions as a judge. But the federal government said that immunity only applies to civil lawsuits and does not shield judges from criminal prosecution.

"Judges have criminal immunity only from judicial actions, like a ruling in a case. They do not have immunity from what are called ministerial actions, like for example, ordering somebody out of the courtroom," Howard Schweber, University of Wisconsin professor emeritus, told FOX6 News earlier this year.