We have previously discussed the lack of a credible defense for Milwaukee County Judge Hannah Dugan, who has been charged with facilitating the escape of an undocumented man being sought by federal officers in her courthouse. Indeed, despite having high-powered lawyers such as Paul Clement, her recent social media posts seem more like a pitch for jury nullification. One bright spot for Dugan was that she was assigned to U.S. District Judge Lynn Adelman, a liberal Democrat who has run for prior office and has been accused of bias on the bench. However, Judge Adelman just delivered a blow to the defense by rejecting Dugan’s claim that she had judicial immunity in taking her actions.
According to the criminal complaint, a six-person arrest team (including an ICE officer, a Customs and Border Protection officer, two FBI special agents, and two DEA agents) came to the courthouse to arrest Eduardo Flores-Ruiz, a Mexican immigrant facing three misdemeanor battery counts they intended to deport.
He is accused of hitting someone 30 times during a fight that erupted over complaints that his music was too loud and assaulting three separate individuals, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported.
Flores-Ruiz was previously deported and then entered again illegally, a federal felony. He was issued an I-860 Notice and Order of Expedited Removal on January 16, 2013, and Flores-Ruiz was “removed to Mexico through the Nogales, Arizona, port of entry.” Not only is reentry a felony but when there is an order of expedited removal, you can be deported without any further court hearing.
After facilitating his escape, Dugan was later arrested and charged with obstructing or impeding a proceeding (18 U.S.C. 1505) and concealing an individual to prevent his arrest (18 U.S.C. 1071).
Calls for resistance and even replication have also come from colleagues on the bench. Monica Isham, a circuit judge in Sawyer County, not only defended Judge Hannah Dugan in an email to other state judges but added that she “has no intention of allowing anyone to be taken out of my courtroom by [Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents] and sent to a concentration camp.”
Recently, Dugan went public with an interview that notably lacked any discernible defense, other than stating that she helps defendants use the “backdoor” when she considers circumstances that “warrant it.”
Judge Adelman ruled on that:
“Ultimately, as the Supreme Court has stated, ‘the official seeking absolute immunity bears the burden of showing that such immunity is justified for the function in question.’ I cannot say as a matter of law that the defendant’s alleged conduct falls within even this more limited version of immunity…There is no basis for granting immunity simply because some of the allegations in the indictment describe conduct that could be considered ‘part of a judge’s job.’”
The lack of any cognizable claim in Dugan’s public pitch suggests that she might be hoping for a juror to simply vote to acquit as a visceral or political statement. This is a liberal jury pool where jury nullification must be a concern for prosecutors even though such an argument cannot be made overtly by the defense to the jurors.
Here is the stark reality for most Americans — we are not protected from the law because we hold no political or judicial power. If anything, those in the legal system should be held to the highest standards of the law and the Constitution. The exceptions being given to and for these people leave the general public vulnerable and angry by the abuse of power. The examples of this are so prevalent that it is almost hard to understand how this has happened and why it can’t be fixed. The excuse that you can kill or bring harm to people you don’t like is a violation to humanity and unless this stops we will go into chaos and a civil war. This must must not happen!!! So keep on writing J Turley — we need the stay informed. Thank you.
Jury nullification (new to me) is nothing but a legal escape hatch that makes justice feel random. Feels like justice isn’t blind — it’s blindfolded and spinning in circles. It certainly feels like legalized lawlessness, and in this case, it absolutely is if she’s acquitted. URGG!! Explains “money talks & BS walks.
Like Michael Sussman being found not guilty despite the clear and unambiguous language in his own emails proving his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.
It is also reminiscent of the Jim Crow era when a white man who clearly committed a crime against a black person, perhaps even confessed to it, being found not guilty by a jury consisting of white people.
On the same topic… So, Luigi Mangione who shot the pharmaceutical executive, Brian Thompson, IN BROAD DAYLIGHT & VIEWED ON TV BY THE WORLD, could get a not guilty gift via jury nullification. Zero verdict change? WOW!! Hard to how grasp how even
brainwashed sanctimonious jurors could blatantly break the law.
BREAKING: Cracker Barrel is reverting BACK to its original logo after President Trump criticized the change. Didn’t even take a day
——-Charlie Kirk
https://x.com/charliekirk11/status/1960475308819407128
Thank god !!!
Our long national nightmare is over !!!!
This counts as a war that Trump ended.
It’s up to 35 now.
This was so crucial to our national security.
I think we’ll all remember exactly where we were when Cracker Barrel changed its logo back
Order has been restored to the universe.
First, they brought back Christmas.
Now they’ve restored the old Cracker Barrel logo from the change made a week ago?
Is there anything this administration can’t do????
Is there any shopworn cliché you won’t trot out?
Is there any worse waste of space on a serious and educational legal blog?
Serious and educational legal blog ????
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Good one !!!
You should consider doing stand up comedy.
You would be a natural.
Either get a life, Gigi, or just end your current one. Nobody would even notice you missing.
Aww, Gigi is having another sadz because everything that she holds dear is falling apart. Have you considered suicide as an option yet?
What about the people that he assaulted. He just gets deported and never gets any accountability for his actions?
Democrats profess to love the little people, but their actions say otherwise.
Mama Fratelli will be found guilty of a lesser charge, advised to retire and collect her pension. So goes our two tier justice system.
So a judge defies the Feds and now is claiming judicial immunity so she cannot be punished? Well that fell flat. I wonder how she would have reacted if the Feds stormed in and grabbed this guy in front of her. It is always interesting who holds the whip and how they use it. I would not hold out too much hope for jury nullification. The talking heads are for her, but average Joe is not much of a fan when it comes to illegal aliens, especially those that are both criminals and violent.
I am betting on a plea deal.
When justice peeks from behind the blindfold, it gets corrupted. Judges interpret the law, not get to break it at their whim. Regardless of how she feel personally, she still has to follow it. The Feds waited professionally and followed the law, why not Judge Dugan.
CRISIS MODE!
If U.S. District Judge Lynn Adelman will not provide cover for a fellow liberal, what defense of liberals is left other than ‘insanity’!!!
He is accused of hitting someone 30 times during a fight that erupted over complaints that his music was too loud and assaulting three separate individuals.
So basically he’s just an innocent Maryland man just trying to support his family. At least to the MSM.
Why can’t the defense implicitly call for jury nullification in their arguments to the jury, at least indirectly? There are ways to frame the argument that don’t explicitly call for the jury to flout the law. That is what “character” arguments are for, especially in the closing statement.
Because that would mean the defense lawyer is asking jurors to violate the Juror’s Oath each one has already sworn to. Of course, the Judge will not allow such a debasement of process.
If convicted, it’s too bad deporting the judge would not be an option.
I dislike a leading Constitutional lawyer to speak of jury “nullification” as something other than a historical aberration of the Jim Crow south. It’s not his place to “expect” jurors to forsake their duty to decide the facts and apply the law as intended by lawmakers, and instead vote based on political tribalism. He should never stray from setting the proper expectations for juror decisionmaking. Remember, being true to your duty as a juror still allows acquitting when a prosecutor has brought trumped-up charges, or overcharged. It doesn’t allow you to decide on your own that a law is unjust or substitute what you think the law SHOULD be.
dura lex sed lex
The professor has a habit of casting aspersions in his columns. Hinting the upcoming trial will be a farce because the jury pool is guaranteed to be liberal and acquit despite the prosecution’s desire.
Right on, bro! -P. Diddy.
something other than a (sic) historical aberration of
Uufff! That is quite an embarrassing mistake, bruh. The correct article is an not a. Conservatives on here who demand English be spoken and written by all will explain it to you. Hint: use a before consonant sounds, use an before vowel sounds.
https://www.grammar.com/a-vs-an-when-to-use
– An illegal Latino immigrant wetback
(but you can call me Papi)
As an historian who has decried this grammatical error for most of the last 60-odd years, I applaud your taking up the rhetorical cudgel. However, it has been my experience that this distinction is honored in the breach.
You can have a one-time pass, but what makes you an illegal?
“. . . their duty to decide the facts and apply the law . . .”
I read many years ago that one of our early pillars of jurisprudence, in his instructions to a jury, told them that, though our system considers a jury the best determiner of facts, it defers to the experience and training of the judge as the best person to apply the law. That said, he told the jury that our common law system allows that the jury can apply the law when they feel themselves better qualified in their specific case. No modern judge is likely to give such instructions to a jury, so they will be unlikely to know that they can, indeed, apply the law.
… the jury is the conscience of society, and their job is not only to decide whether the defendant did the acts charged, but whether he should be condemned and punished for it. The jury protects us from immoral or socially undesirable results. . . And so the law doesn’t really matter when the mob doesn’t agree with the law, as we pave the way to lawlessness.
No. The legislature is the conscience of society. Jurors only decide fact from artful fiction, and apply the law to the facts.
Juries are not case-by-case legislators.
If Dugan is sustained in her defense, this opens the door wide to any judge for any reason to assist any defendant to escape, murderers, embezzlers, gangsters, or whomever. This transcends the simplistic schoolboy politics favoring illegal immigrants, as in this case. For example, there are lots of concentration camps in the USA, though usually called penitentiaries.
pretty much every democrat who is helping illegals should be jailed as well
It’s hard to understand why Title 8 Section 1324 of the INA is not being enforced here. That makes it a federal crime to shelter illegal immigrants or help them escape detection and arrest.
apparently all Democrat Judges….believe THEY are the law and can be LAWLESS
We need to disabuse them of this, by jailing a BUNCH OF THEM!
She is in fact the law in her district and for that reason has to be made an example. But that will not stop the dem zombies. So what does one do with zombies?
Judge Dugan if convicted, she should the evidence is shows it, needs to go to Jail for years.
This criminals video will be a key piece of evidence against her come trial time. My guess, she takes some reduced Plea that avoids jail time………….
Disbarrment and forced retirement from the bench would be a suitable deterrent to other judicial lawbreaking.
Add loss of pension and other government benefits.
Yeahhhhhh…. death to liberals.
100% agree
There are likely two possibilities. First, that faced with severe election losses, Ds will one day become responsible. The other is that, as unlawful means of political corruption are cut off, they will be increasingly violent. This is who they are.
Yes, some Ds would resort to violence, but it’s a tiny sliver of ’em — the most radicalized and anti-social. As demonstrated in LA, we’re getting much better at diffusing political violence, even when local Mayors are ready to look the other way. We’re in a much better place than before. It’s up to the voters in 2028 whether to keep this progress intact.
Given those 2 options . . . My money’s on Door #2.
Sadly, she’ll probably find that juror. The Left has often demonstrated that it has no respect for the law. All she needs is one juror on a liberal jury and she’ll most likely get more than that. The Left is willing to burn everything down to accomplish their goals.
100% agree
Sadly true. Destroy her life.
“Sadly, she’ll probably find that juror.”
Someone correct me if I’m wrong, but given that this a federal case, wouldn’t the jury pool be from a wider area than just this one left-wing county?
Your assumption that jurors vote their political viewpoint (in violation of their Juror’s Oath) is just paranoid and incorrect.
Juries are deciding 1000s of cases every day across this land. How often do you hear the losing lawyer claim the jury voted their political bias? Almost never. Of course, the news doesn’t report when a jury gets it right….there would be too many to cover.
Reality is that which the news media DOESN’T cover. You can tell people who are duped by sensationalist journalism….their estimations of reality are way off.
That’s quite a hair trigger reaction to a simple question regarding the physical location of the jury pool. Sounds like you have an axe to grind.
pea brain in california wants everything under the sun litigated and decided by juries of idiots.
Every posts she makes grinds that axe.