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It's not a glamorous beat, but another CW news follow-up.
Last week Judge Hannah Dugan of Milwaukee County Circuit Court was found guilty of felony obstruction by a jury. This was the judge who assisted an immigrant's attempt to evade arrest by ICE. The Wisconsin Examiner published what looks like excellent coverage of the trial and verdict.
Eduardo Flores-Ruiz, Mexican national, was arrested in March of 2025. Milwaukee ICE cross-referenced his fingerprints where they found a match with a previous 2013 deportation by US Border Patrol. Milwaukee ICE conjured up an administrative warrant and gathered a smorgasbord of FBI, CBP, and other federal agents. They planned to apprehend Flores-Ruiz after his appearance. At the courthouse, with the agents presence known, Judge Dugan and a Judge Cervera approached the agents in the hallway. At the end of this interaction, Judge Cervera left with the agents to go to the chief judge's office. According to the agents and Judge Cervera's testimony that was where they were told to go to hash out the legitimacy of their presence, warrant, and the planned apprehension. According to Dugan's defense, that conversation never occurred, though from the reporting alone I do not know what they offered as an alternative except that Dugan did not personally review the warrant.
Judge Dugan returned to her courtroom where she rearranged the docket to move Flores-Ruiz's case to the top. She told him and his attorney their next hearing could be held via Zoom then she "led Flores-Ruiz and his attorney, Mercedes de la Rosa, to a non-public door to exit" the courtroom. Instead of making an escape, Flores-Ruiz and his attorney stumbled into the public hallway which eventually led to his arrest-- an agent had remained behind with eyes on that exit. It's interesting his attorney did not prevent this navigation error despite having knowledge of building. According to the Examiner she was portrayed as a "naive" stooge by the prosecutors. This suggests to me she sensed a measure of impropriety, if not outright criminal potential as this was ongoing. Judge Cervera, who accompanied the agents in the halls, testified at trial and did not run cover for Dugan.
It's safe to assume the water cooler talks have become more awkward in Milwaukee County. Other judges and lawyers testified for the defense. Even a former mayor came out to testify as a character witness.
That last sentence doesn't sound great, does it? The merry mix-up argument says policy was confused and the law unclear, but for questions of intent this recording couldn't have helped:
The jury's verdict -- guilty on obstruction but not guilty on misdemeanor concealment -- is arguable. Dugan's lead attorney "told reporters that he was disappointed with the ruling and didn’t understand how the jury could have reached a split verdict since the elements of both charges were virtually the same." A compromise verdict does make sense in the jury sense-making sense. Most average joes aren't going to relish sending a judge to prison especially when the former mayor comes out to vouch for her.
I have doubts that Dugan will end up serving a real sentence in prison. She's a 66 year old judge who the mayor testified for. I suspect they'll work something out even without consideration of an appeal. Who did she risk her freedom for?
Eduardo Flores-Ruiz was scheduled to appear for domestic violence and battery charges. Those charges come from a complaint by an unnamed roommate who texted Flores-Ruiz about loud music in their shared apartment. Flores-Ruiz confronted the roommate about this text and began pummeling him. This victim was punched in the face at least "30 times." The roommate's girlfriend made an attempt to intervene which resulted in a second pummeling. All pummeled out the assailant turned his attention back to the male roommate and began choking him. A third individual, a cousin of the girlfriend, appeared on the scene, avoided a pummeling of his own, and ended the altercation.
Flores-Ruiz reportedly uttered something in the realm of this isn't over before the couple went to the hospital to receive treatment. They filed a report which led to the Mexican national's arrest and now, also, his deportation. I believe these two were present in the Dugan's courtroom on the day in question.
Anyone surprised by the verdict? Not surprised? Is this a signal received for #resistance in the justice system? A clear line drawn on what the public and feds will tolerate. Or, is the lesson a more practical? More quiet, sophisticated acts are required to protect democracy with celebration for a new martyr on the right side of history. ICE agents lingering outside courtrooms does step on a predictable boundary. If the autonomy of a judge's courtroom justifiably extends into the hallways, then where should it end?
While alternating between the suspects first and last name makes the text less repetitive, this makes it also harder for anyone who has a context window too short to still contain the full name (which you mentioned a few paragraphs earlier) to understand what is going on. "Well, it seems like the Eduardo and Flores-Ruiz guys are both equally at fault here" instead of "per your summary of the charges, that Eduardo Flores-Ruiz guy really seems to be a piece of work".
Agreed. Hyphenated name felt bad to repeat, but adding in "Eduardo" there was lazy. There were options: X individual, Mexican national (established above), assailant. I consider it improved now.
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I am a bit surprised by the verdict - mostly because I figured this would be swept under the rug in some sort of deal before it ever went to trial. The fundamental problem here is that a judge asserted her authority well beyond her remit, and the golden rule of power grabs is that you shouldn't make a push unless you're certain that it will work.
Did this judge think she was safe? If so, was it because "everyone does it", or was she so high on #resisting that she was thought there was no world where someone would actually punish her?
I'm surprised because I thought ICE's deportation orders are not the big swinging dicks of arrest warrants, which is why they say stuff like don't answer the door for them if they knock and they can't deport you. If an illegal alien's roommate can refuse to let ICE in and it is not obstruction, then why is what this judge did obstruction?
I think it is distasteful for the judge to interfere in a law enforcement activity to be clear, just not sure how they found her guilty.
They don't have to be the "big swinging dicks" to be covered under the charge. 18 USC 1071 states
The Justice Department helpfully lays out the elements:
But I think she was convicted on the other charge, 18 USC 1505, which fits rather less well. It fits about as well as the obstruction charges from Sarbanes-Oxley fit the J6 cases; it has one section specifically concerned with obstructing the Antitrust Civil Process Act, and the second is
Seems to me under the J6 precedent, this should be thrown out. This is not the kind of obstruction 18 USC 1505 was meant for.
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Yeah, she thought he would get out of the building and no one would be any the wiser.
Is this a common thing?
IIRC a judge in Massachusetts tried to do similar in Trump's first term, but it looks like that case was settled (not sure if by previous administration) for merely a public reprimand.
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Probably yes, at least before she was arrested. Judges are given quite a bit of slack. Even now, she can be pretty confident that (1) she won't get any jail time; (2) the next Democratic administration will pardon her; and (3) she will have a nice soft landing teaching at a law school or working for a Soros-funded NGO.
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The feds had supposedly been offering a plea bargain for a while, though the details haven't been made public. If the bargain was just felony-with-no-jail, she had a lot of reason to reject it even if a conviction was likely; if it was a misdemeanor, she was making a pretty high-stakes bet.
Part of her decision-making was probably resistance huffing, but there's also a lot of long-standing norm about treating various protections around judicial office-holders very expansively, both to avoid complex legal situations and with the tacit understanding that prosecutors that didn't would find judges suddenly less charitable to their position. That equilibrium became a lot less stable since Dugan's initial behavior.
I'm not surprised it went to trial, my bet is that it came down to the issue of Dugan continuing to serve as a judge and the two sides could not reach an agreement on that point. If the prosecution's offer was Dugan resigns and pleads to a misdemeanor, she really did not have that much to lose. She is retirement age and the only real impact of the felony conviction will be to force her to step down or get impeached. For a first time non-violent offense, she will almost certainly get no jail time, plus now she will get to do a #resistance martyrdom tour, and quite possibly get a pardon in three years.
She won't be allowed to own firearms though, and my experience (with several friends and family that work as prosecutors and defense attorneys) is that criminal law judges and attorneys have a lot of angry people who would like to kill them.
But those are incompetent people and this woman is obviously blue tribe enough that 'guns' aren't the default answer to personal security questions.
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Apparently there have only been 54 recorded homicides of US judges since the 1800s, and that includes homicides that were not work-related. Also I really doubt an elderly liberal lady in Milwaukee owns firearms in the first place, just based on gun ownership demographics.
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I would think there would be fewer issues of upset equilibrium (and reduced political deference) in this case since she's a county judge and it's a federal prosecution. I'm certain if it was state or local law enforcement she was screwing with, nothing would have happened.
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Getting a conviction is a little surprising, if only because of the extremes of jury nullification we've seen in other cases. The split verdict is weirder and might help the inevitable (and quixotic) appeal, but there's probably going to be more mileage in hammering on the edges of the sentencing guidelines to avoid a prison sentence and pulling the next Dem president for a pardon.
I'm not sure if it says anything too big. The behavior here was especially brazen, the immigrant unusually unsympathetic, the arguments about primacy of criminal cases particularly unbelievable, Dugan's unwillingness to testify on her own behalf technically can't be used against her but definitely didn't help, and the feds were able to get a relatively friendly (or at least not-actively-unfriendly) jury pool.
It's information when you're not surprised, but it's not that strong a signal.
There's also a bit of messiness about the actual judicial seat. She's been suspended since April, but still is technically a judge. The state has previously argued that a felon has to resign from office at the time of conviction, not sentencing, but there's not really a direct enforcement mechanism and if there were it'd be run by the largely-sympathetic-to-Dugan judicial office. She could be impeached, but it takes two-thirds of the state Senate to do it, and while Republicans are a majority, they're only a slight majority. Especially if Dugan pushes appeals, she could end up keeping her seat til 2027 or even 2028.
That domestic violence received all that attention for fundraisers, charity, and politicking while also receiving "non-violent" mitigation cover is indeed maddening. It's easy for me to say that a murderer should serve his sentence before we extradite, deport, and pass him along. It's more difficult to say we can't suspend a guy's sentence of a few weeks to get him out of here while we have him. We could even use that space to jail more domestic violent non-violent domestic abusers!
The "You Know Who is a felon in office" snark writes itself. Maybe the right school will send the right offer to teach law from house arrest and all can be forgiven.
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The judicial documents are available here.
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I knew a clerk who once told me of a case where a jury found a man on tried on drug charges to be guilty "possession with intent to distribute", but not guilty of "possession". I assume that sort of thing is reasonably common for legal purposes, but that attorneys will of course point to how nonsensical it is as a way to support their client.
That really seems silly. Presumably you guys have something like rules for the competition of criminal norms, and how acts which violate different norms should be punished. If A shoots B, you might sentence them for first degree murder, instead of adding murder 1, murder 2, manslaughter, assault with a dangerous weapon, assault, property damage, reckless discharge of a firearm, and noise disturbance.
I suppose that the only reason why a prosecutor would charge two different crimes where one encompasses the other would be that they were unsure if they could get a conviction on the more serious offense. "We are not sure if we can convince the jury of intent to distribute, so let's add simple possession just so we get something."
OTOH, reaching a common verdict may more be about everyone saving face than the verdict making any sense. If juror A insists on intent and juror B insists on acquittal on something and you have no (possibly mildly autistic) juror C who insists on the verdict being self-consistent, it seems like a way to make everyone happy.
Replying to this comment, but I am also addressing @cjet79 's post below because they are similar and my answer should either answer both, or at least open the door for more precise questions.
The answer as to why multiple charges are filed is both for proof reasons and for plea reasons.
As you speculated, if a man shoots another man the prosecutor will charge Murder, Manslaughter, Aggravated Batter/Assault with a Firearm, Agg Discharge (probably not reckless discharge because at least in midwest states those laws wouldn't apply to an intentional discharge at a person and charging both can be self defeating), etc. In fact, there will typically be dozens of charges of murder alone because some will contain enhanced sentencing language, and some will contain different theories of mens rea such as knowingly vs. purposely vs. indifferently etc.
But also those are included for plea reasons. Lets say your top charge is Murder 1st Degree, by discharge of a firearm. Where I live, the minimum sentence would be 45 years with 10 additional years of whats called MSR, which is just super fancy strict parole. But, you would also include a regular 1st degree murder charge which has a minimum of 20 years. Now, if you are in a courtroom in Chicago, you realistically as a prosecutor have to pick which murder hills to die on. Getting a conviction on a plea to 30 years on the 1st Degree Murder charge without the gun enhancements is a nice thing to do once in a while, because otherwise you are constantly picking murder juries and then putting on week-long murder trials. And, thats just the murders, you have no time for the armed robbers, hijackers, sex crimes, etc. Not to mention your thieves, drug dealers, drug users, etc.
This pattern is particularly useful for some sorts of crimes where a gun or other weapon is not actually recovered, but is alleged to be used in a crime, like a Carjacking. Carjacking with a gun in IL is a Class X felony carrying 6-30 years. But, you can't always prove it was a real gun, right? Well Carjacking where you indicate you were armed is a Class 1 which is 4-15. If there is a jury trial you present both charges and say, "hey if you think the carjacking happened like our witness says, he's guilty, but if you don't think our witness has proved beyond reasonable doubt that the gun wasn't a painted toy, he's still guilty, just of a lesser, but still quite serious, offense."
As for other posters speculating about double jeopardy with multiplicative charging, I have never heard of that argument getting close to winning at any significant appeals court in any state. It simply is a profoundly silly argument. There won't be two juries and two judges hearing each charge. Its one jury and one judge hearing one trial. And if convicted the cumulative convictions out of a single act are served concurrently, so its not like if you shoot a guy and are convicted of all 10 murder counts alleged that you now are a 10x convicted murderer and serve 10 sentences. You are just sentenced on the most serious charge and all the others follow (of course this is different if you kill 2 people at once, or as some felons like to do, were caught with 2 illegal firearms, those can often times be sentenced consecutively as they are separate offenses).
I will say, however, that everything I wrote only really applies to state and local prosecutors offices, which do handle the majority of crimes committed. The feds get to pick their cases and spend more time on a single fraud case than most state prosecutors would on multiple murder or sex crimes cases (which are typically the longest trials in state courts). So overcharging does happen much more often with that level of prosecution. But for some prosecutors in Chicago or Milwaukee or Indianapolis? Haha no, they charge what they think fits, and then the defendant often gets a very generous deal on one of the lesser included offenses. Its more like undercharging, if we are being pedantic. But to change that reality you would need to double the size of every PD, triple the number of prosecutors, and triple the number of judges, while also tripling the jury duty burden on your citizens.
TLDR? I guess its that multiple charges for one crime typically makes a lot of sense.
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As an outsider the whole edifice confuses me quite a bit. They'll charge someone with ten crimes, when only one thing is the really bad one and the other 9 were all part of the commission of the 10th crime. And then they might not even have consecutive sentences for the crimes, but concurrent ones which means all the court time and effort on the lesser charges is pure waste.
As a juror I can imagine going ya he is guilty of the worst one, but it feels like legal BS to double charge him with a lesser crime that is the same thing.
It is -- the double jeopardy clause prevents double charging where the elements of one charge a proper subset of the other one. That's not a question for a jury tho.
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Judges and jury duty as a concept was thought of by mutant deontologists (the English) for a race of mutant deontologists, which humans are not.
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The double jeopardy clause causes some strange things with regards to lesser-included offenses, and often times a defense attorney will want that lesser-included charge on the indictment to argue that the jury should convict on it instead of the greater charge. Sometimes prosecutors will keep the lesser-included because they're afraid of the jury acquitting if the only option is the greater charge.
On the other hand, the prosecution will also want to avoid jurors anchoring on a mid-severe charge.
For example, I would imagine that if you charged a defendant with 1st degree murder, 2nd degree murder and manslaughter, and the case was less than 100% obvious, then the jury would be likely to compromise on the 2nd degree charge. So if you have a good case it might make sense to only charge 1st degree and only leave the options 'convict' or 'acquit' to the jury.
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