A jury has found Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Hannah Dugan guilty of felony obstruction for helping a violent illegal alien escape from federal agents when they showed up at her courtroom to arrest him. Dugan was not convicted of the lesser federal misdemeanor, concealing a fugitive.
While Dugan’s attorney said the case isn’t over and she will appeal, her arrest and conviction should send the message that state court judges are not above federal law when Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and other federal agents show up at a courthouse to enforce immigration law.
Angry Judge
The possible end of Dugan’s legal career began on April 18, when she helped previously deported Mexican goon Eduardo Flores-Ruiz flee from ICE, FBI, and Drug Enforcement Administration agents. Flores-Ruiz was in court to answer charges that he assaulted two people.
He beat the daylights out of a man for “playing loud music” the night of March 12, the criminal complaint said. He struck the man 30 times, then choked him, and assaulted two others. What song the man was playing the complaint didn’t say, but it could have been a particularly raucous version of La Cucaracha that disturbed Ruiz’s 40 winks.
Strangely, when the agents showed up at the courthouse, Dugan suddenly became Flores-Ruiz’s defender. She “became visibly angry,” the criminal complaint against her recounted. Dugan angrily confronted an ICE agent, whom she ordered out of the court. When the agent said he was there to make a lawful arrest on an administration warrant, Dugan told him he needed a “judicial warrant” and must see the circuit court’s chief judge.
Dugan told Flores-Ruiz and his attorney to “come with me,” and “then escorted Flores-Ruiz and his counsel out of the courtroom through the ‘jury door,’ which leads to a nonpublic area of the courthouse,” the complaint says. She told the pair to exit “through a backdoor of the courtroom,” and “[a witness] saw Judge Dugan escort Flores-Ruiz’s attorney and [Flores-Ruiz] through a non-public door near the courtroom’s jury box.”
Video of the action clearly shows Dugan helping Flores-Ruiz depart the scene.
After the courtroom contretemps, the Wisconsin Supreme Court suspended Dugan with pay. In August, U.S. District Judge Lynn Adelman rejected her claim that she was immune from prosecution.
Just Following Orders
When that claim failed, Dugan argued that she was following orders from the court’s chief judge.
Just before the tussle over Flores-Ruiz, Dugan argued in a motion, Chief Judge Carl Ashley “circulated draft policies advising judges and court staff how they should respond to ICE arrests going forward.”
“Court personnel may not authorize the entry of immigration agency personnel into the nonpublic areas of any Court facility; and must promptly refer immigration agency personnel to their immediate supervisor or manager,” Ashley’s draft said:
If an immigration agency officer insists on access to a non-public area, the employee should not resist but should say, “I do not consent, but because I have no other choice at this time, I will not interfere with your order” and immediately contact their supervisor about the officer’s order, prepare a written statement about the encounter, and submit it to their supervisor.
Evidence “demonstrates what Judge Dugan understood what she was required to do,” Dugan argued. She “had no corrupt intent…. She asked for guidance, received it, and followed it.”
Verdict
As the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported about Dugan’s conviction, that policy is still a draft. Opening the four-day trial, the federal prosecutor, Assistant U.S. Attorney Keith Alexander, said “the judicial robe the defendant wore that morning did not put her above the law,” the newspaper reported.
Steven Biskupic, formerly the U.S. attorney for Wisconsin’s eastern district, represented Dugan:
[He] countered that Dugan was not scheming to help the undocumented defendant, Eduardo Flores-Ruiz, escape, but was a busy state judge trying to follow emerging guidance on dealing with immigration arrests in the Milwaukee County courthouse.
It is a judge’s job to balance the interests of all parties, not to serve ICE, he said.
“The government brought in 19 witnesses, ranging from federal agents to a fellow judge,” the newspaper explained. Dugan did not testify.
That judge was Kristela Cervera, who appeared in the hallway outside Dugan’s courtroom next to the furious judge as she confronted two agents. Cervera was “a key witness,” the newspaper continued. She testified that “she was reluctant to go in the hallway with Dugan and she was shocked to learn the allegations against Dugan”:
“Judges should not be helping defendants evade arrest,” Cervera testified.
On cross-examination, Cervera admitted she texted her sister, a lawyer, after the incident to warn her that ICE agents were in the building. Defense attorneys said she helped the government in order to save herself. The government downplayed the text to her sister.
Biskupic said “the case is a long way from over,” the Journal Sentinel reported. They will ask Adelman, appointed by President Bill Clinton, to set aside the verdict, notably because the jury acquitted Dugan on the misdemeanor concealing charge.
Dugan faces up to five years in prison.
“NO ONE IS ABOVE THE LAW,” said U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi, echoing the refrain of Democrats about President Trump:
No one can obstruct law enforcement as they carry out their basic duties. This Department of Justice will not waver as our agents and law enforcement partners continue to make America Safe Again.
Adios Muchacho
As for Flores-Ruiz, his story has a happy ending — for Americans. Having been deported in 2013 after jumping the border at Nogales, Arizona, he re-entered the country, which is a felony.
In September, he pleaded guilty to re-entering the country and agreed not to fight deportation if he were sentenced to time served.
On November 13, ICE deported him.
![Hegseth Demands Fitness Requirements, Says 'Fat Troops' 'Not Who We Are' [WATCH]](https://teamredvictory.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/Hegseth-Demands-Fitness-Requirements-Says-Fat-Troops-Not-Who-We-350x250.jpg)
