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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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