(MILWAUKEE) — Attorneys for Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge Hannah Dugan are seeking to dismiss her federal indictment on charges alleging she helped an undocumented immigrant evade arrest, claiming in a new court filing that she is immune from federal prosecution for official acts.
In the filing, Dugan’s attorneys cite the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in President Donald Trump’s immunity case as support.
A federal grand jury indicted Dugan on Tuesday on charges she concealed a person from arrest and obstructed a proceeding before a department or agency of the United States.
Dugan appeared briefly in court Thursday morning. Her lawyers entered a plea of not guilty to the two federal charges.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Stephen Dries, who presided over the arraignment, set a trial date for July 22. The trial will be overseen by U.S. District Court Judge Lynn Adelman, and was estimated to take about a week.
The government has not yet filed a response to Dugan’s motion to dismiss the indictment.
“This is no ordinary criminal case, and Dugan is no ordinary criminal defendant,” her attorneys, Rick Resch and Steven Biskupic, wrote in the motion filed Wednesday. “The government’s prosecution of Judge Dugan is virtually unprecedented and entirely unconstitutional.”
Dugan was arrested on April 25 at the Milwaukee County Circuit Courthouse after being charged in a criminal complaint. Prosecutors allege she was attempting to help a defendant appearing in her courtroom evade federal agents who were in a public hallway outside her courtroom waiting to arrest him for immigration violations.
“The problems with this prosecution are legion, but most immediately, the government cannot prosecute Judge Dugan because she is entitled to judicial immunity for her official acts. Immunity is not a defense to the prosecution to be determined later by a jury or court; it is an absolute bar to the prosecution at the outset,” her attorneys wrote in the motion. “The prosecution against her is barred. The Court should dismiss the indictment.”
In three instances in the motion, Dugan’s attorneys cite the Supreme Court decision in the Trump immunity case as support for their position that Dugan is immune from prosecution for official acts.
Federal authorities allege that Dugan went into a hallway in the Milwaukee courthouse and directed the agents away from her courtroom, then instructed the defendant, Eduardo Flores-Ruiz, to leave the courtroom through a non-public entrance, allegedly in an effort to allow him to evade arrest. In a post on social media following her arrest, FBI Director Kash Patel claimed Dugan “intentionally misdirected federal agents away from the subject to be arrested in her courthouse.”
But Dugan’s lawyers contend in their motion that the doorway Flores-Ruiz used to exit the courtroom leads to the same public hallway a few feet away from the doors to Dugan’s courtroom. There, agents involved in the operation spotted him, followed him to an elevator and then arrested him after a short foot chase outside.
“Even if (contrary to what the trial evidence would show) Judge Dugan took the actions the complaint alleges, these plainly were judicial acts for which she has absolute immunity from criminal prosecution,” her lawyers wrote. “Judges are empowered to maintain control over their courtrooms specifically and the courthouse generally.”
Her lawyers also argued that whatever Dugan’s motivations might have been, they are “irrelevant” to the issue of immunity.
The Wisconsin Supreme Court suspended Dugan in the wake of her arrest, stating in an order that it found it was “in the public interest that she be temporarily relieved of her official duties.”
Dugan’s legal team draws from four different firms and is led by Biskupic, a former Wisconsin federal prosecutor appointed by former President George W. Bush.
Another of her lawyers, Dean Strang, will be familiar to viewers of the Netflix docuseries, “Making a Murderer.” Strang was one of the defense attorneys for Steven Avery in a controversial homicide case, who became an unlikely star.
The legal team also includes Paul Clement. A former U.S. solicitor general during the George W. Bush presidency, Clement has argued before the Supreme Court more than 100 times. His Washington, D.C.-based law firm is listed in a court filing on Wednesday as being part of Dugan’s legal team, but Clement has not yet entered an appearance in the case.
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