Background: Surveillance footage shows Milwaukee County Judge Hannah Dugan interacting with ICE agents before Eduardo Flores-Ruiz was detained (WDJT/YouTube). Left inset: Eduardo Flores-Ruiz (Department of Homeland Security). Right inset: Surveillance footage capturing Eduardo Flores-Ruiz exiting the Milwaukee County courthouse (WDJT/YouTube).
A judge in Wisconsin, facing federal obstruction charges for allegedly assisting a Mexican national in avoiding detention, appears in newly released video confronting Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents within her Milwaukee County courthouse.
Judge Hannah Dugan can be seen in the footage confronting plain-clothed ICE officers in a hallway before they are escorted out.
This video, initially acquired by local ABC affiliate WISN and CBS affiliate WDJT, displaying different perspectives from each channel, allegedly shows Judge Dugan engaging with the agents regarding their attempt to detain Eduardo Flores-Ruiz. Ruiz is a Mexican national who was present at the courthouse for a hearing and is facing misdemeanor battery charges.
Dugan is accused of letting Flores-Ruiz sneak out through a jury door after allegedly telling the ICE agents that they needed to speak with the court’s chief judge before detaining him.
The footage allegedly shows Flores-Ruiz arriving at the Milwaukee County courthouse and Dugan speaking with the agents minutes later in the hallway, WDJT reports.
Flores-Ruiz is allegedly seen leaving through the jury door, while a plain-clothed agent who spotted him follows behind, per WDJT.
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Dugan, who is out on bond, has entered a not guilty plea after being arrested last month. She is also accused of falsely telling agents that they needed to obtain a judicial warrant to take Flores-Ruiz into custody. Her charges include obstructing or impeding a proceeding before a department or agency of the United States, and concealing an individual to prevent his discovery and arrest, which carry a maximum penalty of 6 years in prison and up to $350,000 in fines if convicted on both counts.
Dugan responded to the charges by filing a motion to dismiss her case just one day before she was arraigned on May 15.
“Immunity is not a defense to the prosecution to be determined later by a jury or court,” her lawyers argued. “It is an absolute bar to the prosecution at the outset.”
In the motion, Dugan’s legal team condemned her charges and prosecution as being “irrelevant to immunity.” They claimed that even if the judge, who has been on the bench in Milwaukee County since 2016, actually did what she’s accused of doing, there would be no way of prosecuting her “because she is entitled to judicial immunity for her official acts,” according to her lawyers.
“The government has no basis in law to prosecute her,” the motion said. “The prosecution against her is barred.”
The government’s prosecution of the judge is “virtually unprecedented and entirely unconstitutional,” her lawyers added, arguing that it violates the 10th Amendment and “fundamental principles of federalism and comity reflected in that amendment and in the very structure of the United States Constitution.”
A trial date has been set for July 21.
