‘Judges are not above the law. Their core function is to respect the rule of law, not to undermine it,’ attorney Daniel Suhr said.
The Milwaukee County judge on trial for helping a violent illegal immigrant elude federal law enforcement authorities has been convicted on one of the two charges against her.
A jury late Thursday found Judge Hannah Dugan guilty of felony obstruction but determined there wasn’t enough evidence to convict her on a misdemeanor charge of concealing an individual from arrest.
Her attorney told reporters that Dugan will appeal the conviction, a verdict that should serve as a wake-up call to judges who disregard laws they don’t like in the furtherance of judicial activism.
Daniel Suhr, president of the Center for American Rights, said the verdict is a vindication that the rule of law applies to everyone, regardless of their position or power.
“Judges are not above the law. Their core function is to respect the rule of law, not to undermine it. That means judges must both enforce and follow laws regardless of their personal feelings about them as a matter of policy,” Suhr told The Federalist Thursday. “Judge Dugan failed in that fundamental aspect of her role, and in doing so broke the law herself.
‘Get the Heat’
Dugan did herself no favors in Milwaukee County Circuit Court on April 18, the day Department of Homeland Security officials showed up outside her courtroom with an administrative warrant to arrest Eduardo Flores-Ruiz, a previously deported Mexican national. The illegal alien was appearing in court that day on an unrelated misdemeanor battery charge. Federal prosecutors in the four-day trial repeatedly pointed to Dugan’s comment to a court reporter that she would “get the heat” for escorting Flores-Ruiz and his attorney to the “jury door,” an exit not accessible to the public, according to audio recordings and transcripts.
Flores-Ruiz then fled while a “visibly angry” Dugan demanded the federal law enforcement officials speak to the chief judge.
The charges were so serious that Wisconsin’s liberal-majority Supreme Court ordered Dugan placed on administrative leave, stating that doing so was in the “public interest.”
Dugan’s attorneys early on argued that the federal government’s case should be dismissed. They noted judges enjoy wide-ranging immunity. But that immunity covers civil actions, not criminal indictments.