According to her defense team, ICE agents overstepped a “longstanding privilege” that prevents civil arrests within courthouse premises when they attempted to detain an undocumented immigrant shielded by Hannah Dugan, a former Wisconsin judge. Dugan was found guilty last year of impeding these agents during the courthouse incident.

Dugan’s attorneys contend in a motion dated January 30 that “ICE had no lawful right to execute the warrant in a state courthouse against a party with a court appearance that day.” They argue that Dugan’s conviction should be overturned on legal grounds, emphasizing that it cannot be upheld.

At 66, Dugan faced indictment for allegedly assisting Eduardo Flores-Ruiz, an immigrant, in avoiding federal capture shortly after his appearance in her Milwaukee County Circuit courtroom related to a domestic abuse case. In December, a federal jury convicted her of obstructing or impeding a federal proceeding, a felony. However, she was acquitted of a separate misdemeanor charge of concealing an individual to prevent arrest.

Notably, Steve Biskupic, a member of Dugan’s defense team and a former U.S. Attorney, mentioned to WISN in late December that they intended to request U.S. District Judge Lynn Adelman, appointed by Bill Clinton, to overturn Dugan’s guilty verdict. On Friday, her attorneys filed for a new trial, citing recent court rulings, including a November 2025 case, which reinforce a “common-law privilege” against civil arrests inside courthouses.

Dugan’s defense references at least four federal district court opinions, spanning from California to New York, which have aimed to restrict ICE from executing administrative warrants in county courthouses like hers since 2020. Her lawyers assert that “since 1894, Wisconsin, alongside other courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court, has recognized a common-law privilege against executing civil process or civil arrest warrants, such as an ICE administrative warrant, on individuals appearing in court.”

Their motion firmly states, “This privilege specifically precludes ICE courthouse arrests for deportations or removal.”

Dugan’s team points out how the Southern District of California, for instance, granted non-citizen plaintiffs a temporary restraining order barring ICE from civil arrests in courthouses in a 2020 case. “That court rejected the argument that the privilege does not apply against the federal government,” her motion says.

“On April 18, 2025, Hannah Dugan, in her role as a judicial officer, acted consistently with an established privilege barring civil arrests of parties in courthouses,” the motion concludes. “Federal and state courts long have recognized that common-law privilege preventing civil arrest or service of civil process for parties and witnesses who are in, entering, or leaving courthouses for a hearing or other proceeding.”

Dugan’s lawyers describe her as “the first and only judge in United States history to stand trial on an indictment for wholly official, good-faith acts untainted by graft, corruption, or self-dealing and that violated no individual constitutional right that the Reconstruction Amendments protect,” per the motion.

The Milwaukee County Circuit Court judge stepped down from the bench last month and officially resigned to keep “pursuing this fight” against the legal system and her guilty verdict “for our independent judiciary,” she said.

“I am the subject of unprecedented federal legal proceedings, which are far from concluded but which present immense and complex challenges that threaten the independence of our judiciary,” Dugan wrote in a letter to Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers, which was first shared by local ABC affiliate WISN.

“I am pursuing this fight for myself and for our independent judiciary,” Dugan added. “However, the Wisconsin citizens that I cherish deserve to start the year with a judge on the bench in Milwaukee County Branch 31 rather than have the fate of that Court rest in a partisan fight in the state legislature.”

Dugan’s lawyers noted in interviews that they were requesting a new trial on the grounds that jurors were improperly instructed during her trial.

Specifically, the jury reportedly asked whether Dugan needed to know who ICE agents were looking for that day in order to convict her. For the misdemeanor concealing charge, the jurors said Adelman told them yes. But for the felony charge, jurors claimed he told them no.

“If it came back the same, we all would have found her not guilty, I am sure of it,” a juror told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel after Dugan’s conviction. “The jury followed Adelman’s instructions faithfully,” another juror said.

In their Friday motion, Dugan’s team argued that “the jury instructions mistakenly gave no guidance to the jury on how to consider Dugan’s legal right to act as she did.”

The motion says, “The court’s improper response to the jury constructively amended the indictment. … The error was not just in the court’s response to the jury, but in the evidence presented.”

During her trial, federal prosecutors alleged Dugan impeded ICE agents during the courthouse immigration bust in Milwaukee by helping Flores-Ruiz, a Mexican national who was facing misdemeanor battery charges, leave through a jury door after a hearing in his criminal case. Dugan was accused of “falsely” telling ICE agents they needed to obtain a judicial warrant to take Flores-Ruiz into custody. Later, a deputy working in the courthouse provided information to federal investigators.

The incident occurred on April 18, 2025, and Dugan was charged in a criminal complaint less than a week later and was formally indicted in late May.

Obstruction carries a potential maximum sentence of five years in federal prison, according to federal law. But such an outcome is exceedingly unlikely due to Dugan’s lack of a criminal record and the facts of the case itself. The sought-after criminal defendant was eventually detained and then deported in November.